Thwarted By House Committee, Jindal Imposes Religion on Louisiana by Executive Order

I don’t know what’s more pathetic: Piyush Jindal thinking that changing his name to “Bobby” makes him a White Evangelical Christian, or Jeb Bush registering as a Hispanic. While Jeb pretty clearly can’t decide up from down, Jindal seems certain. He’s a believer, or so he’d have us believe.

I do know that while Bush has only talked about imposing theocracy on Americans, Piyush Jindal has already done it.

On Tuesday, The House Civil Law and Procedure Committee had just voted 10-2 to not advance his state’s “Religious Freedom” bill, The Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act (HB 707).

Piyush was having none of this democracy nonsense on his watch. In fact, though Republicans have been up in arms since Obama took office over Executive Orders, Piyush says his executive order will “accomplish the intent” of the legislation his legislature voted not to advance.

So Jindal, one of those calling Obama lawless, intends to govern by fiat, against the will of the people Republicans are always pretending to care about. You see, Republicans only like majorities when majorities go their way.

In a statement, Jindal expressed his disapproval:

We are disappointed by the committee’s action to return the Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act to the calendar. We will be issuing an Executive Order shortly that will accomplish the intent of HB 707 to prevent the state from discriminating against persons or entities with deeply held religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman.

This Executive Order will prohibit the state from denying or revoking a tax exemption, tax deduction, contract, cooperative agreement, loan, professional license, certification, accreditation, or employment on the basis the person acts in accordance with a religious belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.

Co-opting the legislature’s powers took Jindal a whole two hours.

The Times-Picayune explains the executive order’s effects:

The executive order means the 20 agencies that fall under the executive branch, including the Department of Revenue, Department of Insurance, Department of Transportation and Development and Department of Health and Hospitals, must abide by the order. Jindal spokeswoman Shannon Bates Dirmann said the executive order does not have the power to force local municipal or parish governments to enforce the rules set forth in the order.

In one stroke of his pen, perversely pretending to be a defender of the First Amendment, which forbids theocracies, Jindal turned Louisiana into a theocracy.

None of this comes as any surprise. We’ve had plenty of warning from Duck Dynasty’s BFF.

As Jindal wrote in a New York Times op-ed in April, “As the fight for religious liberty moves to Louisiana, I have a clear message for any corporation that contemplates bullying our state: Save your breath.”

If you’re looking for democracy, save your breath. It’s not wanted. Jindal likes to accuse liberals of being intolerant bullies, that “The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with,” but that is exactly the attitude he just expressed in his Executive Order.

What is funny is that he said to Iowa talk radio host Simon Conway just last week:

In America, there used to be a time with the left, and the media even, celebrated diversity and tolerated free speech and religious liberty. Simon, the sad truth is that’s no longer true. They tolerate anybody that agrees with them and nobody else.

A week later he is writing that you can’t do this and you can’t do that “on the basis the person acts in accordance with a religious belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.”

My viewpoint will be the only viewpoint that matters in Louisiana, he has effectively stated, which makes all his previous claims to be a champion of religious freedom, a lie.

White Evangelical tyranny is Jindal’s idea of religious freedom.

Back in February, in a speech at Ronald Reagan’s presidential library (a good setting from which to wage war on religious freedom), Piyush said,

The American people, whether they know it or not, are mired in a silent war. It threatens the fabric of our communities, the health of our public square and the endurance of our constitutional governance.

This war is waged in our courts and in the halls of political power. It is pursued with grim and relentless determination by a group of like-minded elites, determined to transform the country from a land sustained by faith into a land where faith is silenced, privatized and circumscribed.

You have to wonder if Piyush knows what “privatized” means. His, after all, is the party of enforced privatization, including our public schools, social security, and probably, ultimately, national defense. How do you privatize faith, anyway? I suspect he thought it gave more force to his words, so he used it.

Piyush went on to tell Simon that, “The only group, it seems like, that the left is willing to discriminate against today is evangelical Christians and others with traditional values and beliefs,” but that was right before he legalized discriminating against gays and lesbians based on those “traditional values and beliefs.”

At any rate, faith is not being silenced, though according to Jesus, the guy Piyush claims to follow, it should never have been publicized. Pray in private Jesus said. Only hypocrites pray in public.

Like Piyush Jindal.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.