The latest darling of the 24 hour news cycle today brings us to the state of Indiana. On March 26, 2015 Governor Mike Pence signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In the last 4 days the reaction has been strong on both sides. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who asks this, but what does the law actually do? Glad you asked. You can find the text of the law here. Props to the Legal Information Institute housed at the law school of Cornell University for providing the text of this law.

The law states that if you believe homosexual relationships are sinful on religious grounds you should not be required to do business with homosexuals. Proponents of this law point to a bakery in Indianapolis called 111 Cakery. In 2014 a gay couple asked the bakery to provide the cake for their commitment ceremony (marriage was not legal at the time). The owners refused on the grounds that their religious beliefs prohibited them from participating in what they felt was a sinful act. The bakery has since gone out of business.

The RFRA states that religious freedom is a right granted in the U.S. Constitution. It further states that laws that are neutral toward religion may burden religious exercise and these burdens should not be in place unless there is a compelling justification.

In other words, government can pass a law that does not appear to violate someone’s religious beliefs and may yet nonetheless do so. In those cases there needs to be an exemption that does not compel someone to do something that violates his or her religious beliefs.

That sounds fine in the abstract but not in the execution. I dug into the text of this law and found this definition of “religious exercise”:

The term “religious exercise” includes any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief. The use, building, or conversion of real property for the purpose of religious exercise shall be considered to be religious exercise of the person or entity that uses or intends to use the property for that purpose.

Individual religious exercise, therefore, does not require the backing of an existing denomination. You can be as racist, misogynist, homophobic or just plain mean as you want and claim religious exercise, even if your faith doesn’t.

Proponents of this law insist this is about religious freedom and not about discrimination. Since I’ve spent virtually all of my adult life in the field of religion I’m sure they take my support for granted.

They shouldn’t. I grew up in the South and witnessed discrimination from an early age. I also witnessed religious people who used faith to justify discrimination and were just as shameless. They argued that God justified segregation by claiming that those of African descent were the children of Ham described in Genesis 9:25.

Today almost nobody will admit to finding this racism acceptable but 50 years ago many did. Hopefully 50 years from now nobody will point to religious beliefs to justify homophobia, but that won’t happen unless we stand up today to condemn the RFRA.

Governor Pence and nearly everyone who is running for the Republican nomination for President swears this isn’t about discrimination but we’re not fooled. Homophobia is rapidly declining in the population but those who hide behind religion still control a disproportionate share of funding for candidates. We need to stand up for the inclusion that all legitimate religions profess.

Let’s all work to make homophobia just as distasteful as racial discrimination.

Several decades ago I had a conversation with my college roommate Rob Duston. At the time he was a student at the University of Virginia Law School, also known as Mr. Jefferson’s Law School.

For reasons I don’t remember our conversation turned to the topic of sex and what was prohibited in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Half as a joke Rob told me that “everything is illegal in Virginia except with your wife in one position.” I thought he was kidding.

Since then I’ve learned that sexual positions and partners occupy way too much time and energy in the lives of our legislators. In 1986 the Supreme Court found, in the case of Bowers v. Hardwick that states can pass laws that prohibit sex between homosexual, consenting adults. Fortunately it was overruled in 2003 by the case of Lawrence v. Texas.

Most of us believe that sexual orientation is not a choice but a given and that we should all be allowed to marry our soulmate, regardless of whether or not that person is the opposite sex or same sex. I’m blessed that I live in a society where my orientation is socially acceptable (and so is my wife’s) but I recognize, acknowledge, and love those whose orientation calls them to someone of the same sex. Many of these children of God have trusted me enough to share their stories with me and I’m grateful for that trust.

But we also live with the fact that there are those, even those in power, who feed into their own fear and turn it into discrimination. They believe that orientation is a choice and those who choose to be homosexual will be condemned by God.

As if that isn’t enough, they believe that those of us who are heterosexual will be condemned to Hell if we dare to tell homosexuals that they are loved. They believe that we will be condemned because we give them “false hope” that God loves them.

Enter Matt McLaughlin. He is a lawyer from Huntington Beach, California and an alleged Christian. He is collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that would make sodomy a capital offense. He even states that they should be put to death by “bullets to the head or any other convenient method.”

OK, I’m a Christian and believe that my life works best when I live in harmony with God’s plan for me. But I don’t believe that my salvation depends on my hating the people Matt McLaughlin hates. If salvation is based on love and inclusion (as Jesus believed) I don’t believe that I have to choose sides on marriage equality. I have dozens of gay friends who I expect to see in Heaven. I pray they will be there because of love.

And I pray they love their husbands and wives as much as I love my wife.

Earlier this week the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. After the events of 9/11 the CIA began, with the approval of President Bush, to gather intelligence that would allow us to find, capture, and prosecute those responsible.

Virtually everyone in the country, and indeed the world, found this appropriate. Violence should always be answered with justice. But early on it became clear that while we all agree on the goal, the Bush administration saw this as an opportunity to suspend the Constitution and ignore long held prohibitions on torture.

Over the next several years we learned about Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, Extraordinary Rendition and a host of other terms. Many of us (who wanted justice for 9/11 as much as anyone) believed that the Bush administration made unwise and illegal decisions under the guise of national security. Unfortunately the administration was clear: anyone who disagrees with us is unpatriotic and secretly hopes for the destruction of the United States.

Time and again they claimed that “enhanced interrogation” of “the worst of the worst” led them to intelligence that saved thousands of lives. Many of us were suspicious or doubtful but in the absence of information (that they refused to release) it was hard to prove.

It isn’t any longer. According to an article in Vox, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence decided to launch an investigation in March of 2009. To be fair this isn’t a coincidence: it came two months after the inauguration of President Obama. Then again many of us voted for President Obama hoping that he would stop the abuses of the Bush administration. In any case when they began their investigation it became clear that they couldn’t interview anyone from the CIA because the Department of Justice was considering criminal prosecution of those involved. Nobody from the CIA would testify out of a well placed fear that any testimony could be used against them in a criminal trial. While the Justice Department decided in 2010 not to prosecute anyone, it gave the Republican members of the committee the cover they needed to stop cooperating with the investigation and distance themselves from any findings. They are now portraying this investigation and report as one sided and partisan even though they abandoned their chance to affect it.

The Democrats on the committee continued their work and published the results here. It’s pretty devastating.

As Americans we need to ask two questions: (1) Is torture permissible?, and (2) Does it work?

As to the first question, I answer “no.” Torture is ultimately about convincing another human that he isn’t human. Torture means telling someone that he isn’t of any value outside of his ability to provide information that is valuable to the enemy. When our Vietnam Veterans spoke of being tortured they all knew that they were being coerced to give information that would injure their country in exchange for better treatment. And they took solace in the fact that the United States didn’t torture Vietnamese prisoners.

As to the second question, that answer is clearly “no.” The report is clear that any information gained was already known from another source or was gained from the prisoner before the torture began. Simply put, all the torture gave us nothing.

And yet the previous administration continues to push back against the facts. Former Vice President Dick Cheney stated on Meet the Press that he would do it again. He claimed it was justified because the Justice Department ruled those tactics permissible.

In the final word this is what troubles me most. The Bush administrated claims to rely on the opinion of the Justice Department even though they were officials Bush appointed. Everyone, from the president on down to the torturers, claimed to be following orders. This sends chills down my spine because it reminds me of the Nuremberg Defense. After World War II the surviving leaders of the Nazi party were put on trial for war crimes. They defended their actions by saying that they were “just following orders” and were not responsible for their actions. The court ruled this defense unacceptable: the defendants had a moral and legal responsibility to refuse to carry our orders that were clearly illegal.

I wish that was more widespread here. Unfortunately there was one man who stood up and called out the torture for what it was: John Kiriakou. He is now in federal prison. His inmate number is 79637-083. Had other shown his courage he might not be there and we would be a country that better lived up to its values.

I’m upset that this isn’t a bigger story, but the standing Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas is in the political fight of his life. This is news because he is a Republican.

Remember this is Kansas. The state that has declared war on teaching evolution.

Four years ago Sam was elected Kansas’ governor in a landslide after a 14 year career in the U.S. Senate. Sam is a strong believer in “supply side economics” or what many of us call “trickle down economics”. Basically this economic theory claims that if we cut income taxes, especially to the richest among of us, that will stimulate the economy. The people who get to keep more of their money will invest it. Ordinary people spend more money. Small businesses, who benefit from this increase in spending, will expand and hire more workers. The money lost on the tax cuts will be offset by more money in income taxes by the people who are hired and the sales taxes paid by the people who spend more.

The best part of this model is that it both looks good and feels good. Who doesn’t want to raise revenue by cutting taxes? Here’s the problem: it doesn’t work. It’s like all the “eat whatever you want and lose weight” diets.

Four years ago Sam was elected and he promised “an experiment.” OK, I have to ask this: someone who has declared war on science is conducting an experiment? In any case he promised to cut state income taxes on small businesses and wealthy individuals and he did. Small business taxes were cut to 0% (that’s right: no taxes) and the highest individual tax bracket was cut by 24% (you can see this here). He promised that while state revenue may take an immediate hit, it will be soon made up by people and businesses who move to Kansas to take advantage of this experiment.

Did it work? No. The NPR story provides an excellent outline of what happened, but basically this is what happened: small businesses benefitted because they didn’t pay taxes but they didn’t expand because there was no increase in business. NPR spoke with Alex Harb, who owns a computer store in Wichita. He spoke about how his tax cut allowed him to purchase more products for his store, but this has not led to an increase in business. Because of this he has not opened new stores or hired more employees. He has not become a job creator.

Is there a downside? Amazingly the supply side/trickle down guys don’t talk about this. Kansas anticipated a drop of $300 million in revenue while the tax cuts kicked in. Alas, they saw a drop of $600 million with no end in sight. If you are wealthy Kansan or a small business owner you have more money in your pocket. But if you work for the state you’re screwed.

The town of Marquette, Kansas was so devastated by the tax cuts that they had to close their last remaining school. You can read this on the Topeka Capital-Journal website. Amazingly the loss of jobs by the school district wasn’t expected by Sam.

So how has the state done? Sam promised that his “experiment” would show that Kansas’ economy would outpace the economies of neighboring states. Has it?

No. Employment in Kansas has grown by about two percent in Kansas, which sounds fine until you recognize that, according to the NPR article, Kansas has fallen behind the national average and three of the four states that border Kansas (and they all have higher tax rates).

I found this at the web page for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Senate. They track several trends, and I looked at private sector job growth since February of 2010. Kansas and its neighbors (Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Nebraska) showed these results:

• Colorado: 12.8%
• Oklahoma: 10.8%
• Kansas: 6.8%
• Nebraska: 6.1%
• Missouri: .8%

According to this Kansas is in the middle of the pack. That’s fine except Sam promised they would leave their neighbors in the dust. Clearly he hasn’t.

The best part of this story for me is the loyalty Sam expected from his fellow Republicans. He should have recognized Republican loyalty is a synonym for jumbo shrimp. Given the opportunity they headed for safety. This story shows how 100 prominent Republicans are endorsing his Democrat opponent Paul Davis. Do you think these Republicans endorsed Davis out of principle? Neither do I. They made a political decision that their future lies in abandoning Sam after cheering him on.

Sam may win or lose, but if he wins, the people of Kansas lose.