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>>The so-called "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" in Indiana was a direct attack on the rights of gay Indianans and other gay people who visit Indiana. Allowing it to stand would have given license to bigotry to spread farther. As Americans and as human beings, we have a responsibility to stand up and call out bigotry where we see it.
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>Tamar, I'm sorry, but the law in Indiana was not a direct attack as you stated.
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>The law (which did need some re-wording and re-factoring) provided a general framework and roadmap for individuals/businesses who were accused of prejudice and/or accused of violating civil rights. A bit of history here - a little over a year ago, the State of New Mexico issued a horrible ruling against a wedding photographer whom many thought was railroaded by an activist state Supreme Court. The law in Indiana sought to strike a balance between liberties and public interests. It was certainly not perfect, but was also not this tool for discrimination that MSNBC and other outlets made it out to be.
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>The mischaracterization by much of the mainstream media and the panic was incredible.
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>And as I mentioned to Bill F, the worst thing that happened (by far!) was the treatment of Memories Pizza. People posted false and nearly libelous comments on review sites about the restaurant, made many death threats, and interrupted their business by repeatedly calling in phony orders that made it impossible for them to run their business. They had to shut down for a few days. Did they deserve any of this? Absolutely not. This is a small little pizza shop that basically got set up by a smug reporter who asked them a theoretical question about catering a wedding (does anyone serve pizza at a wedding???), and what ensued demonstrated incredible hypocrisy. And to make it worse, a State Senator in Indiana made comments that could be interpreted that the shop got what they deserved. I encourage you (if the website comments on restaurant review boards are still available) to read into this case.
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>Going to ask you a question - let's suppose you were a world famous web page developer with immediate brand recognition. When people see one of your websites, they immediately spot your look and feel and they say, "wow, that's a Tamar Granor website". Now suppose a group whose views you despise (KKK, some supremacist group, etc.) came to you and wanted you to build their website. You don't want your brand associated with their hate speech. See where I'm going with this? :)

Yep, and the answer is that there's a difference between who someone is, and someone's behavior. I can refuse to do business with a company that does something I consider reprehensible; that's not the same as refusing to do business with someone because of their sex or religion or race (or, in my view, sexual orientation). For example, I would not work for a tobacco company; I think what they do is nearly criminal.

A similar argument I saw in one article during the Indiana uproar was analogy to a (fictitious) Jewish t-shirt shop owner refusing to print shirts with a swastika for the local neo-Nazis. I thought it was specious because, in that case, the owner would have refused to print such shirts for anyone.

There were two aspects to the Indiana version of the RFRA that made it different from the federal RFRA and those in other states. Quoting from http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/04/explaining-the-indiana-rfra-controversy-in-five-minutes/:

Indiana’s law contains two provisions that are being debated nationally. One provision allows corporations as well as individuals to file lawsuits in cases where they feel their religious rights are being violated. The second provision expressly allows “persons” (individual or corporate) to sue each other over these violations, without the government being part of the lawsuit.

The federal RFRA is about keeping the government from prohibit expressions of religion in many cases. This law is about transactions between individuals or individuals and companies; the state doesn't have to be part of the process. I don't have time to go digging now, but I'm pretty sure that if you go back and look at the legislative discussions and the public dialog before the law was passed, you'll see very clearly that it was taking aim at equal protection for gays.

Tamar