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Liberals in the Washington State legislature are once again attacking the free practice of religion.  Bills introduced in the House and Senate by some of the most liberal Democrats in this state’s congress would put employers in further jeopardy of frivolous lawsuits by disgruntled employees and former employees.  In addition it furthers the business-unfriendly climate that exists here in Washington State.

I’m guessing that this is payback for the trial lawyers who supported them in their campaigns.

Aside from opening the door to violating the free exercise clause of the US Constitution, this bill has a broad and nebulous definition of what constitutes a violation.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. (1) An employer may not require an employee to attend a meeting, or listen to, or respond to, or participate in,  any other communication when a purpose of the requirement is to ensure that employees receive communications relating to political or religious matters or to influence the employee’s beliefs, opinions, or actions about political or religious matters.

(2) An employer may not take or threaten to take an adverse employment action against an employee because the employee:

(a) Refuses to attend a meeting or listen or otherwise respond to, or participate in, any other communication that the employee reasonably believes violates or would violate this section;
(b) Challenges or opposes any practice or action that the employee reasonably believes violates or would violate this section; or
(c) Makes a claim, files suit, testifies, assists, or participates in any manner in any investigation, proceeding, or hearing involving any practice or action that the employee reasonably believes violates or would violate this section.

The fact is proselytizing, or evangelism, is a basic tenet of most Christian religions.  Preventing anyone, no matter where they are or what they’re doing, from engaging in those efforts violates the free exercise clause.  This law would likely hold the employer responsible any such efforts by any employee for simply allowing the free exercise of religion by any employee. Let me put it another way.  If an employer allowed one employee to talk about his religion in the workplace another employee could claim that he was therefore forced to listen to it.

And you can kiss the company Christmas party goodbye.  And forget about businesses partnering with religious charities to benefit the needy in our communities.

Makes me wonder what these people are so afraid of.  Why does religion, especially Christianity, frighten these people so much that they make every possible attempt to squelch it?  Talk about frightened and clingy.

Here’s how I think they should change this bill:

• Remove any reference to religion, since it’s covered in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which this law violates;
• Leave in all of the stuff about politics;
• Include labor unions everywhere that employers are mentioned.

This way some of the Republicans in the Puget Sound area who fear for their jobs just for mentioning their political affiliations will have some recourse and maybe some union members will feel free to vote their conscious instead of having to risk their paycheck and their safety.

Think that will ever happen?

Related:
COFFEE BREAK: business and politics

Update:
Holmquist: broad bill could limit free speech, cost jobs

Update:
‘Working Privacy Act’ dead amid ethical questions

Follow these links and compare the wording:

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith has a new flack: Michael Amato
Washington Republicans get a new spokesman: Matthew Lundh

In the announcement about the new communications director for a Democrat Joe Turner stoops to calling him a ‘flack’. Not even close to the screed about communications directors for the Republicans.

Then he describes the Democrat who the new communications director is working for in glowing terms as “our go-to guy on terrorism issues.” Did you catch how he described the Republican who the other new communications director is working for? Inarticulate. Hey I’m no fan of Luke Esser, but the point is that Turner can’t seem to resist slamming Republicans and fawning over Democrats.
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It’s hard to tell what’s happening in King County but the elections office says it may break records for new voter registrations. Apparently this isn’t just the people who want to vote for Sarah Palin since this trend was going on before the announcement was made naming her as McCain’s running mate. There might be some of that involved, but not all of it is.

According to the AP story in the TNT:

King County is just 41,000 voters away from its all-time record and new voters are signing up at a rate of more than 10,000 a month. So far more than 16,000 new voters have signed up in September and last month, 19,000 enrolled.

That’s 16,000 for the first half of September. Maybe that’s the Palin effect, but the 19,000 last month probably aren’t. A Rasmussen poll does put McCain/Palin within 2 points of Obama/Biden in Washington state and these two facts could be connected.
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There’s no doubt that Sarah Palin has changed this election. Other than the occasional October surprise that grows legs I don’t think I’ve seen this big of a shift in my life. It’s taken a little time to settle out, but we can finally start measuring the actual effect she’s had.

McCain had lost the base of his party, conservative Republicans. He did this by repeatedly leaning left on issues that were important to them while doing nothing to try to win them back. I’m not sure if his advisers had actually calculated the effect Sarah Palin would have or if they just got lucky. But they struck gold, not just with the base of the party, but with others as well.

Political wonks on the left have been complaining that ‘white, middle-class women’ have been deserting the Democrat party in droves. Many of these were leaning toward Hillarity (oops… I mean Senator Clinton) and when Barry took the nomination away from her they lost interest in the party. Then along came someone who is just like them. So they changed their opinion. They’re not endorsing McCain. They’re endorsing Sarah Palin.

When she entered the picture I started thinking about Washington state and whether she could put the state in play. If the information I received in an email today is correct, then she has done just that. Here’s what it said:

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I’m continually frustrated by groups that call themselves Republicans, but really aren’t. They’re actually wolves in sheeps clothing. I had a discussion on this site a few months ago with one of them. I think they have a great idea, but they’re working in the wrong direction.

I think we need to create and support groups that infiltrate the Democrat ranks with a conservative agenda. Think of the effect we could have with groups like ‘Democrats for Lower Taxes’, ‘Mainstream Democrats’ who send out mailings in support restrained government spending on failed mass transit ideas, or ‘Family Values Democrats’.

On one hand they schmooze the Dem. elites and glad-hand all of the big Dem. donors, but on the other hand they promote conservative ideas like family values, a strong military, lower taxes and smaller government.

Hey, if liberals are going to try to infiltrate the ranks of the Republican party and bring their liberal agenda, then turnabout is fair play.
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Liberals are attacking the platform adopted by the WA GOP Convention in Spokane over the weekend. Some of their attack is based on misrepresentations and some is based on values that differ greatly from the people who actually adopted the platform, the WA GOP grassroots voters.

The WA GOP Convention

I’ve been trying to get a better feel for all that went on over the weekend. I wasn’t there since I didn’t even submit my name for consideration as a delegate in the Pierce County convention. I figured I wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything there so it would be a waste of my time and money. From all reports, as I expected, it was politics as usual, something that usually turns the grassroots off and drives them away from the party (like it’s doing to me).
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It was frustration with the Washington State Republican Party (WSRP) that first prompted me to refer to myself as a ‘Republican by default’ several years ago. It stemmed from all the trips to the voting booth where I couldn’t find a candidate that I could vote for so I ended up voting against the other candidate. I still voted Republican, but only because the other guy was worse.

That same feeling returned when I showed up at the caucuses in February of this year. Fred Thompson had already withdrawn and Mitt Romney withdrew shortly before we the event. The base of the party wasn’t having a party. We were stuck with a candidate who had kicked us to the curb several times in the last six years as he journeyed leftward, probably the result of his previous defeat in the battle for the party’s presidential nomination.
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Recently a commenter on this site asked me how I defined ‘a conservative’. I didn’t respond because it’s not up to me to define it.

Something liberals seldom understand is that words have meaning. If we try to change the meaning of a word we end up misrepresenting something or someone, which is usually tantamount to a lie.

That being said, I guess a definition of ‘a conservative’ is in order. Simply put, and pardon me for pulling a Webster and using another form of a word to define that word, a conservative is someone who holds to conservative principles.

An easy mistake that is made is to confuse conservative principles with the issues of the day. Another is to refer to someone as a conservative who only holds some of those principles while rejecting others.

What are those conservative principles? America has a somewhat unique set of principles that make up the ideals that we want to conserve. The individual principles are not unique, but together they are uniquely American.
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Frank Rogers, a long-time Pierce County Republican and active member, has written an open letter to the state party chair, Luke Esser, regarding the handling of a vote at the convention last week.

I’ve been mulling over some concerns about that vote for the last week and couldn’t settle on how (or whether) to blog about it. Since this post is available, I guess I have a way to talk about it. What held me back from commenting was that I’m not well versed on parliamentary procedures at this point, so I wasn’t sure what to focus on. This open letter helped me find a way to address it.

After reading the letter I spoke with the convention parliamentarian (Alex Hays, see our discussion about another matter at the convention in the comments here.) His points about the County Executive endorsement vote were basically:
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Not the usual DV Web site. This one seems to be focused on Washington state and the issues of domestic violence against men and father’s rights. I think it might be a spinoff of Thurston Pundits, but I can’t be sure (if I’m wrong about that and they let me know, I’ll correct this post).

Washington DV Press

I’m glad that sites like this are around. I wish them well in what they’re trying to accomplish. The ‘pendullum’ of domestic violence has swung too far in the direction of a radical feminist agenda and needs to swing back again.
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