Idaho ranks worst in nation for faith healing deaths - KIVITV.com Boise, ID

More children die due to faith-based medical neglect in Idaho than in any other state. Today, advocates for children discussed ways to develop legislation to change that.

Rita Swan, national expert and founder of the group "Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty," also known as "CHILD," was in Boise Friday, Sept. 22. She discussed the Gem State's ranking as the worst in the nation in terms of faith healing deaths.

"Before Idaho had even become a state, the territory enacted a law requiring parents to provide necessary food, clothing, shelter and medical attendance to their child," Swan said.

But religious exemptions were added to the law in 1972.

Idaho ranks worst in nation for faith healing deaths - KIVITV.com Boise, ID

Missouri’s dangerous religious exemption measure advances – LGBTQ Nation

It is important to note what Onder focuses on, "[n]o one should be compelled to make a work with their own hands that’s offensive to their beliefs.”  This point is or is becoming the focus of some of the faux persecution cases we have been hearing of.

Missouri‘s Republican-led Senate on Wednesday advanced a proposal to add greater religious protections to the state Constitution for some business owners and individuals opposed to gay marriage after Democrats stalled a vote for about 37 hours.

The move marked an end to a stalemate emblematic of a national debate over balancing civil rights and religious liberties following last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.

The proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution would prohibit government penalties against those who cite “a sincere religious belief” while declining to provide goods or services of “expressional or artistic creation” for same-sex marriage ceremonies or celebrations.

The measure was revised Wednesday to specifically state that florists and photographers would be protected and to clarify that it applies to services provided for a reception taking place around the same time as a wedding ceremony.

Missouri’s dangerous religious exemption measure advances – LGBTQ Nation

UPDATED::West Virginia House approves religious exemptions bill – LGBTQ Nation

UPDATE::  Child abuse victim advocates concerned about 'religious freedom' bill 

HB 4012,  has been defeated!!  "HRC released the following statement after a bipartisan vote in the West Virginia Senate rejected HB 4012, a shameful anti-LGBT proposal that would put LGBT people -- and West Virginians of all walks of life -- at risk for discrimination. This bill failed to advance this afternoon by a vote of 7-27."

But, knowing how the Reich operates, they will not let this matter go especially as the following article notes in regards to a recent Louisiana court ruling, "which held the sincere practice of a religious belief above the safety and well-being of a child abuse victim."

HB 4012 may be a "dead duck" for now but we will see it again which make the concerns of child abuse even ore pressing.

People who work to prevent child abuse and help abuse victims in West Virginia are concerned that a bill up for a final vote in the Legislature on Wednesday could be used to justify child abuse in the name of “religious freedom.”

The bill (HB 4012), which is similar to “religious freedom restoration acts” in other states, establishes a legal process for courts to follow when people or businesses believe the government is violating their religious beliefs.

The law would establish a balancing test for courts to use when determining whether the person is being substantially burdened by government action, and whether the state has “compelling governmental interest” in ensuring the law is followed.

Governmental actions could include civil rights laws, including local LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances, so civil rights advocates fear the law will be used to allow discrimination against the LGBT community and other historically-discriminated against groups.

Proponents of the bill have openly said support stems from opposition to same-sex marriage.

Jim McKay, state coordinator for Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia, is worried about effects on another vulnerable group — children. He wonders if “governmental action” would also include laws to protect children.

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Amid growing opposition from the business community, West Virginia‘s Republican-led House of Delegates cleared a bill Thursday that proponents say would ensure freedom of religious expression and opponents say would sanction discrimination.

In a 72-26 vote, delegates approved the measure that would let people cite religious objections to state actions in certain court proceedings.

The bill resembles laws in 21 states that are largely modeled off existing federal law. However, newer laws have garnered attention after the Supreme Court ruled to legalize gay marriage.
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On Thursday, more than a dozen Democrats voted with the Republican majority, while a handful of Republicans opposed it.

The proposal moves to the Senate, where Republican Senate President Bill Cole hasn’t taken a position on it.
“That’s going to be a tough one,” Cole told reporters Monday. “There’s no question.”

West Virginia House approves religious exemptions bill – LGBTQ Nation

City Council votes to strengthen LGBT civil rights protections

While they've been a protected class for four years in the city, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people now have backing to protect against discrimination.

After a lengthy discussion that included more than 20 speakers from the public, the City Council Monday night voted 7-2 to amend its human rights ordinance to give the Human Relations Commission enforcement and investigatory powers into claims of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Under the old city ordinance, sexual orientation and gender identity were included as a protected class in the city's Human Relations Commission code, but investigations were voluntary.

That meant a homosexual or transgendered person could be fired from a private business, denied housing, refused service or kicked out of school, and the case would be closed if the accused party didn't comply with an investigation.
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Religious exemptions do apply. With the amendment passed Monday, churches, religiously affiliated nonprofits, religious schools and other official religious organizations are exempt from the commission's reach to enforce anti-discrimination claims.

City Council votes to strengthen LGBT civil rights protections

Georgia governor says changes in works on religious exemptions bill – LGBTQ Nation

Georgia‘s governor indicated Monday that changes are coming to a bill allowing faith-based organizations to refuse service to gay couples without repercussion.

Supporters say it’s intended to prevent religious adoption agencies, schools and other organizations from losing licenses, state grants, or other government benefits for their religious beliefs about same-sex marriage.

The state’s business community continued to marshal opposition to the proposal, wary of the type of economic backlash Indiana experienced following 2015 passage of a broader “religious freedom” law. At an event touting the state’s booming film and television industry, Gov. Nathan Deal said his office is working with legislative leaders and declined to say whether he supports the Senate-approved version.
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The measure as approved by the Senate allows individuals and faith-based organizations to decline service to couples based on religious beliefs about marriage. Senate leaders added that language, originally from a separate Senate bill, to a House bill allowing religious officials to decline performing gay marriages.

Opponents warn that the changes to the bill also could extend the legal protection to businesses with faith-based mission statements.

Georgia governor says changes in works on religious exemptions bill – LGBTQ Nation

ADDENDUM::Georgia Senate backs exemptions for gay marriage objectors – LGBTQ Nation

Please note that I am well aware that the issues in Georgia have exploded in the past week to 10 days.  While "this" may be old news for those that are aware and have been following said issue, some may be uninformed.  I am also seeking to present some sort of time line for what has occurred as not only does it present national issues but international as well in regards to business and travel.

One point that needs to be kept in mind while looking at Georgia and other states (Indiana comes to mind), this IS a direct result of Hobby Lobby.

When one looks at the decision rendered by SCOTUS it has to be through the lens of the Reich's overall agenda -  starting with a "reformed" interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause or an outright repeal of the First Amendment,  continuing with the abolition of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending with the implementation of dominionist ideology in order to govern by theocratic control.  With the ruling in Hobby Lobby, the Reich will "now" be able to exempt themselves from any laws that they don’t like; that they find “religiously objectionable.” 

This is a direst response to the challenge against theocratic authority that Ken Ham and Terry Mortenson of AIG speaks of,

Georgia‘s state Senate approved a bill on Friday allowing faith-based organizations to refuse services to same-sex couples without government penalties, including loss of grants or other taxpayer funding.

Senators voted 38 to 14 on party lines, despite fear about damage to the state’s economy expressed by the state’s influential business community and opposition from gay-rights advocates.

The bill combines a Senate proposal shielding adoption agencies, schools and other faith-based organizations from penalties for opposing same-sex marriage and a House bill allowing religious officials to decline performing the unions.

Sen. Greg Kirk, an Americus Republican, initially proposed the exemption for faith-based organizations as a separate bill titled the “First Amendment Defense Act.”

What makes the bill so erroneous,

In its example of beliefs that would be protected, however, the bill cites only the view of marriage as that between one man and one woman.

Georgia Senate backs exemptions for gay marriage objectors – LGBTQ Nation

NC lawmakers, magistrate want to defend gay marriage exemption – LGBTQ Nation

Trying to digest this narrative.  But it comes down to one thing - money, "The request marks the latest incidence in which the Republican-led General Assembly has hired private attorneys to defend legislation, spending several million dollars."   And of course, my usual cash-cow, Alliance Defending Freedom,is in the midst of things.

Two North Carolina lawmakers and a magistrate have asked a federal court to let them defend a religious exemption law involving civil marriages challenged as discriminatory against gays.

They largely blame their request on Attorney General Roy Cooper, who is personally opposed to the law but whose office represents the state in the litigation.

Senate leader Phil Berger, House Speaker Tim Moore and Alexander County Magistrate Brenda Bumgarner filed motions this week to intervene in the lawsuit as additional defendants, represented by private attorneys. They contend that Cooper cannot adequately defend a law that he is known to personally oppose.

NC lawmakers, magistrate want to defend gay marriage exemption – LGBTQ Nation

ADDENDUM::Tampon-waving woman demands officials protect her right to speak in tongues amid anti-gay rant

In regards to the troublesome equal rights law proposed by Anchorage Assembly member  Bill Evans:

Evans said that he borrowed the religious conscience provision from elsewhere, and that may refer to the recent nondiscrimination protections passed in Utah. The Utah compromise, however, was unique because religious exemptions already existed under state law, for other civil rights protections. Thus, the carveouts were not unique to LGBT people, but were the same as they were for race, sex, and other classes.

In this proposal, Evans is actually doing the opposite in quite a problematic way. He’s trying to create new exemptions specifically to accommodate the addition of LGBT protections. Moreover, he’s not even qualifying them as LGBT-specific, so all of Anchorage’s civil rights protections would be weakened as a result. Refusing to serve an interracial marriage would hypothetically be just as shielded as refusing to serve a same-sex marriage.

We now have this bit of wackiness,

A failed U.S. Senate candidate known for speaking in tongues spoke out against LGBT rights in a wacky, tampon-waving address to city officials in Anchorage.

Kathleen Tonn, [mentioned here] the former Republican candidate, carried a briefcase stuffed with props and wore a wool hat and flannel sweatshirt Tuesday night to the meeting of the Anchorage assembly, which is considering an LGBT rights ordinance, reported the Joe My God blog.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. You like my trumpet? It’s a sound heard around the world,” Tonn said, before pulling a Bible from her briefcase.
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“Since one of my brethren introduced the King James Bible, since I represent the Lord Jesus Christ the great I am, I’m going to add to your public document and your public record from the public document of the great I am,” Tonn told baffled officials.

“Starting with, oh my — a tampon,” she said, pulling a feminine hygiene product from between the pages of her Bible. “Reminds me that little girls in pubescence get periods — female girls.”

Tonn, who is probably best known for a video she posted online showing herself fully clothed and speaking in tongues in a sauna, then angrily read a lengthy passage from the Second Epistle of Peter describing God’s wrathful judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah.

WATCH: Tampon-waving woman demands officials protect her right to speak in tongues amid anti-gay rant

How An Alaska Lawmaker Is Trying To Sneak Anti-LGBT Discrimination Into The Law | ThinkProgress

Three years ago, Proposition 5, which would have created LGBT nondiscrimination protections, failed to pass in Anchorage, Alaska. The defeat followed a very ugly campaign that demonized LGBT people with warnings of “tranvestites who want to work with toddlers” and men sneaking into women’s locker rooms. Now, a member of the city’s Assembly says that he wants to pass those protections into law — or so he claims.

Anchorage Assembly member Bill Evans has proposed an expansion to the city’s equal rights law to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the protected classes, but there’s a catch. His bill has a gaping exemption that will allow religion to continue to justify anti-LGBT discrimination.
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Evans said that he borrowed the religious conscience provision from elsewhere, and that may refer to the recent nondiscrimination protections passed in Utah. The Utah compromise, however, was unique because religious exemptions already existed under state law, for other civil rights protections. Thus, the carveouts were not unique to LGBT people, but were the same as they were for race, sex, and other classes.

In this proposal, Evans is actually doing the opposite in quite a problematic way. He’s trying to create new exemptions specifically to accommodate the addition of LGBT protections. Moreover, he’s not even qualifying them as LGBT-specific, so all of Anchorage’s civil rights protections would be weakened as a result. Refusing to serve an interracial marriage would hypothetically be just as shielded as refusing to serve a same-sex marriage.

How An Alaska Lawmaker Is Trying To Sneak Anti-LGBT Discrimination Into The Law | ThinkProgress

Religious exemptions from medical care: Faith healing kills children.

If your faith mandates spiritual healing and your child dies because you offer prayer instead of insulin or antibiotics, your chances of being charged with a crime are slim. There are religious exemptions for child neglect and abuse, negligent homicide, involuntary manslaughter. Several states allow parents to use a religious defense against charges of murder of their child—and in some places they can’t be charged with murder at all. And even when parents are prosecuted, acquiescence to religious belief often leads to their being acquitted or given light sentences, including unsupervised parole. None of this, of course, applies to parents who refuse medical care on nonreligious grounds; those individuals get no immunity from prosecution.

Some states allow religious exemptions from required testing of newborns for metabolic disorders, such as the inability to break down fats or amino acids, that can kill an untreated child but are perfectly treatable if caught early. Some states allow exemptions from giving newborns hearing tests or prophylactic eyedrops that can prevent blindness in infants infected with chlamydia or gonorrhea.* Seven states allow religious exemptions from testing children for lead levels in their blood, and six even allow religious exemptions to students learning about disease in school. In perhaps the most bizarre and potentially dangerous law, public school teachers in California can legally refuse to be tested for tuberculosis on religious grounds.

These exemptions have produced the expected result: Hundreds of children have gotten sick and died because their parents resorted to faith rather than medicine. I cover this ongoing tragedy, one of the most serious conflicts between rationality and superstition, in my new book, Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible, and you can read more in Caroline Fraser’s God’s Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church and Paul Offit’s Bad Faith. These children either have no choice in their treatment or are not mature enough to make informed decisions. Some, like children of Jehovah’s Witnesses who die from refusing blood transfusions, are even extolled as “Youths who put God first.” All of them are martyrs to their parents’ religion.

Religious exemptions from medical care: Faith healing kills children.

Anti-vaxx scientist whines about being ‘discredited’ as he pushes vaccine fears on Orange County moms

How many more lives have to be damaged or lost before people stop taking this man seriously? How many children have to suffer before parents look at the actual science behind vaccines and not the work of a fraud. "It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong." In other words, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."  In our case, the health and safety of our nation, outweigh the "rights" of the few.  As a parent you do not have a “right” or a “choice” to put others (or even your children) in danger because you refuse to understand how modern medicine and science work.

During a conference in Orange County held by the group Moms in Charge, Wakefield complained that his career as a scientist had been ruined.

“As someone who has published science for a long, long time I’ve realized that they can simply destroy that,” he said during the April conference. “You can destroy a career of a scientist in five minutes — in five minutes. And it will take a lifetime to restore — if ever. It is so easily done.”

“There is no smoke without fire,” Wakefield continued. “You mentioned the word fraud, and it is all over. One of the things I have noticed about our community is that they play into the pharmaceutical industry’s public relations line. They say ‘discredited, discredited.’ Every article you write, write ‘discredited’ before Wakefield. ‘Discredited, discredited, discredited’ until it sinks into the consciousness of everybody.”

“And even our own people who know this is going on say, look, we can’t appear on a stage or in an article or support whatever that person is doing because they’ve made them discredited. What do we do by doing that? We fulfil the agenda of the public relations company of the pharmaceutical industry.”

Anti-vaxx scientist whines about being ‘discredited’ as he pushes vaccine fears on Orange County moms

In response to all the debate concerning SB 277,,,

The SkepVet has put together a nice blog post in support of this measure with some useful links, additional information about the legislation, and sources of information concerning the relevant vaccines.  As noted, "Opponents of this legislation include extreme anti-vaccine activists who have likened the measure to the Nazi Holocaust and have threatened violence against legislators who support it. Though misguided and misinformed, these views could intimidate politicians into not taking action on this important issue, so it is important that they hear from more moderate citizens with all points of view."   A comment also provides some serious yet comical relief:

Are Religious Rights and Freedoms Being Trampled? | Center for Inquiry

Some religious people complain that we are now witnessing a ‘clash of rights’. They suppose that in the hotelier and photography examples, we are, in effect, allowing gay rights to ‘trump’ religious rights. What of the right of religious people not to be forced to act against their own religious consciences?

I have allowed that exemptions to rules and laws should sometimes be made on the grounds of conscience. However, clearly not every conscientious objection can or should be accommodated. Consider: ‘I believe it is fundamentally wrong that I not be allowed to steal from supermarkets – in fact my new religion demands it of me!’ Precisely when exemptions on grounds of conscience should be made is a tricky matter. Various factors need to be taken into consideration, including how strongly the objection is felt, and also the effects on others of exempting or not exempting. If one doctor refuses to perform abortions, but other doctors are available, then the service need not suffer as a result of the exemption. On the other hand, while it is true that if one hotelier is allowed to turn away gay couples, others will probably continue to provide that service, such public displays of discrimination against gay people are clearly going to have a bad effect on their well-being.

In fact, if hoteliers can appeal to conscience to justify saying ‘No gays’, then why can’t they similarly justify saying ‘No blacks’? If you think such objections should be accommodated if and only if they are religiously motivated and that ‘No blacks’ wouldn’t be, think again. US racial discrimination and segregation has often been Biblically justified. Racist signs would certainly have to be permitted if the hoteliers belonged to, say, the racist Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa. So too would religiously motivated signs saying ‘No Jews’ and ‘No Catholics’. Accommodating the consciences of the religious in this way would quickly undermine the effectiveness of equal rights legislation and usher back the bad old days when a stroll down a street of hotels would reveal sign after sign displaying poisonous bigotry.

Still, shouldn’t religious conscientious objections sometimes be accommodated? Our answer to this question needs to be carefully qualified. Yes, a religious conscientious objection should sometimes be accommodated. But not because it is religious.

Are Religious Rights and Freedoms Being Trampled? | Center for Inquiry

Religious exemptions to vaccines shouldn't exist | Finding Faith, Finding Home

An interesting read as I never quite knew how one could "justify" the anti-vac position biblically. As Stone points out, you can't (definitely something to explore,,,hmm).

One comment that struck me: "By the way, this summer being the centennial of the outbreak of World War I, it may be interesting to note that the U.S. Army lost more men to the 1918 flu than it did to German guns."
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“God Does Not Support Vaccines” is a remarkable example of scaremongering. The Big, Bad Government, Megan alleges, is steadily chipping away at the religious exemption currently allowed by 48 states. When that happens, you’ll have to home school, but even then, you can’t rest, because They Will Be Coming For You.

In some states, religious exemptions are simple to get. In others, it’s more complicated. Iowa, for example, requires that the parent demonstrate that

“immunization conflicts with a genuine and sincere religious belief and that the belief is in fact religious, and not based merely on philosophical, scientific, moral, personal, or medical opposition to immunizations.”

(Twenty other states allow a “personal belief” exemption, meaning that parents can simply decide, for whatever reason, that they don’t want their kids vaccinated and that is that.)

Megan’s post, as the title suggests, seems an attempt to offer vaccine skeptics a “genuine and sincere” belief “that is in fact religious,” this despite the fact that, as Judge William F. Kuntz II of Brooklyn’s Federal District Court noted in January, SCOTUS decisions have 

“strongly suggested that religious objectors are not constitutionally exempt from vaccination.”

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,,,Megan’s “religious” objections are founded on very shaky theological ground. She cites Genesis 1:31, the creation account, as ‘proof’ that vaccines contradict God’s will:

 “God saw all that he had made and ‘it was very good.’ God’s perfect. Nothing further needed.”

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If you truly believe that vaccine-free is best, get on a plane with your kids and go to one of the countries where measles, mumps, diphtheria, and polio are not even close to eradicated. Then realize anyone from there can come into your community, your school, your church, your grocery store and start an outbreak — if not in you, than in the vulnerable people you come in contact with you. And if that truly doesn’t bother your conscience, you don’t deserve a religious exemption of any kind, since virtually every religion includes something like this: take care of others as you’d take care of yourself.

Religious exemptions to vaccines shouldn't exist | Finding Faith, Finding Home

Two More States Introduce 'Right to Discriminate' Bills | The Bilerico Project

Remember earlier this month when legislators in Arizona advanced a bill that would create a special "right" for individuals and businesses to refuse to serve LGBT people, as long as they claimed Jesus told them to? Well, similar bills could become law in two more states, if Republican legislators have their way. In Kansas, House Bill 2453 would allow both people and private businesses to deny a long list of services to LGBT couples, just as long as the person or business is "operating consistently with its sincerely held religious beliefs." (Funny, I wasn't aware that businesses had religious beliefs...)

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The bill has a decent chance of passage, since the Republican Party controls both houses of the Kansas Legislature and notorious homophobe Sam Brownback sits in the governor's mansion.

Sounds bad, right? That's because it is. But believe it or not, South Dakota's bill could be even worse.

The relevant portion of South Dakota's "right to discriminate" bill, Senate Bill 67, reads as follows:

No person or any personal business may be required to provide services, accommodations, facilities, goods, or privileges for a purpose related to the solemnization, formation, or celebration of any marriage, or treat any marriage as valid for any purpose if such action would cause any such person or personal business to violate the person's sincerely held religious beliefs.

Two More States Introduce 'Right to Discriminate' Bills | The Bilerico Project