more resources on RFRA (wrapping up, I hope)...

I had blogged on this early-on and then written an op-ed on the topic. The story moved quickly and has largely died out (including the efforts of legislators, the next week, to amend the infamous law). In the reaction to the responses to the initial reaction-- did I say that correctly?-- commentators have had other useful things to say, so let's catalog those for the record...

On various experiments....err, games of "gotcha": homosexual bakers, Muslim bakers, the small-town pizzeria (including the angles that the market punished-- and then later rewarded and more fully, here-- and asks why that's not "enough"). UPDATE: Here's what the pizzeria owners plan to do with the crazy money donated to them. And here's a useful idea from Brent Bozell. 

On hypocrisy: 1.) Of complaining about Indiana's at-most-semi-issue, while doing business in countries that are brutal on human rights in general or on homosexuals in particular. 2.) Of the Left in wanting to (passionately) defend some forms of religious freedom (thus, their support for the Federal RFRA, back in the day-- yes, even though it's different than Indiana's law), but not others. (See also: the ACLU in many cases.) 3.) And more on the base issue: the surpisingly-and-sadly-standard liberal incoherence about freedom on individual social issues and tolerance.

One of the mysteries in this episode is why Governor Pence (and presumably, proponents of the bill) were so ill-prepared to answer basic/obvious questions. One answer is that this isn't really Pence's thing; he was responding to interest groups; and he didn't imagine the firestorm.

More philosophical pieces: Tom Huston in the IPR on who gets to decide about who gets to discriminate; the popular Martin Niemoller quote and Florence King quip-- which beg questions along the same lines; and Judge Napolitano on the slippery slope that is necessarily introduced once we deny Goldwater's approach to this issue in 1964. "Gay rights" supporter Ilya Shapiro. This audio/program from Tom Woods. This from Acton's Jordan Ballor. This from a lesbian couple who supported the pizzaria owners with a donation. Practically, why would you want to do business with someone who doesn't want to do business with you? Steve Chapman and Eric Metaxas on the desire to defend all minority-held rights-- all of them, as best as possible. And John Stossel to top things off: "bake me a cake or go to jail".

Other: 
-An anecdotal example (although trivializing this reminds one of the quip that "minor surgery" is what happens to other people) that the absence of RFRA can kill.
-By her approach to this issue, it's obvious that Carly Fiorina is entirely too reasonable to be President-- and entirely too grown-up to deal with a nation of children and distracted people. (That said, her emphasis on the "benefits" is too strong.)
-A funny/sad article on "Offendotrons"-- the sort of behavior you'd expect from (caricatures of) conservatives, but ironically, we get it a lot more faux-tolerance fundamentalists of all stripes.