Battlefield Indiana

As I said the other day, the Indiana House passed the religious freedom bill.  It will quickly pass through the Senate and Governor Pence will sign it.

What the hard, pro-tyranny-and-decline-and-distorition-of-basic-concepts-and-word-meanings Left has unleashed in response is as grotesque and horrifying as anything this state has seen in at least a long time.

The religious freedom bill is designed to prevent situations such as that which befell Richland, Washington florist Baronelle Stutzman, who had served a particular couple in other ways prior to the request for a wedding floral arrangement, and was perfectly willing to refer them to other florists, but found herself the target of a lawsuit brought by the state’s Attorney General and now stands to lose not only her business, but her personal assets, or Lakewood,Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who was sentenced to sensitivity training for similarly declining such business.

And we know that the free market would elegantly solve any such situation that arose.  The Christian service provider declines to take the homosexual couple's business, the couple finds a service provider happy to take its business, and there are wins all around.  The Christian is free to stay true to his or her faith, the couple gets its cake / photographs / chapel, and the willing service provider gets a new customer.

But, no.  The Left demands that we create a new right - the right not to be offended - out of thin air.  In fact, in a case from upstate New York, a couple with a honeymoon ranch was sued by a lesbian couple for "emotional distress."

Social media posts by Hooisers today have been overwhelmingly pro-distortion-of-basic-concepts.  Christians and free-market proponents have been lying low.  Self-righteous preening from the Leftists about how they are "embarrassed and ashamed for their state" have been the order of the day.

Some 600 people attended a late-morning rally outside the courthouse in my city.  Signs were of the "Just let me eat" and "No to hate" variety.  Indianapolis TV news crews were on hand to cover it.

Cummins, the Fortune 200 engine maker with its world headquarters in our city, has chimed in, saying the bill runs counter to its corporate value of diversity.  Companies in its supply chain, as well as recipients of its foundation's largesse, know which side their bread is buttered on.  You'll not hear much institutional dispute of the mighty C's position, I daresay.

We all know what the real mission is here: To strike a wounding blow to free-market economics, and to render Christianity a marginal, niche belief system.  The message to Christians is clear:  shuffle off to the sidelines and zip it.

I would say that there is going to come a point at which Governor Pence will no longer be able to compartmentalize it all, to sign a bill like this on the one hand, and take measures to ensure that Indiana stays at the forefront of economically healthy states on the other.  We may have a relatively impressive unemployment rate and a budget surplus, but Indiana is still part of post-America, and hence, underneath the smiley-face surface, as ugly and grim as anywhere else in this rapidly darkening land.