My predictions for 2015 are now up for Insiders. Earlier this week, Eric Longenhagen and I put together a lengthy post of prospect notes from spring training, covering players from Houston, Atlanta, the Yankees, San Francisco, the Cubs, and Texas. My top 50 prospects update went up earlier in the week, with very modest changes other than the addition of Yoan Moncada.
My latest boardgame review for Paste covers the tile-laying game NanoBot Battle Arena, a quick family-strategy game with a high interactive (read: screw your opponents) component.
I’ve got fewer links than normal this week due to endless travel; at this point I’m just relieved spring training is over and I can regain some kind of control over my whereabouts.
- The revival of Baseball Prospectus continues with Alan Nathan’s superb (but math-heavy) piece on what kinds of spin matter in baseball.
- Worlds colliding: Brooklyn Nine-Nine cast member and former Parks & Recreation writer Chelsea Peretti once told a down-and-out pitcher that he was going to make the big leagues – and he did.
- This Vanity Fair profile of attorney Judy Clarke, who has defended the Unabomber, Susan Smith, and now Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is remarkable for its prose and its content.
- ThinkProgress has a good takedown of the RFRA myth that Indiana’s law is just like the ones passed in nineteen other states. It’s not, and the difference is why people are so mad.
- The New York Times also wrote about the RFRA controversies, with a report that Walmart’s CEO asked the Arkansas governor to veto that state’s version.
- Meanwhile, in my former home of Arizona, the state government’s history of extreme anti-science lunacy continued with a law requiring doctors to tell women that abortion pill effects are reversible. Your views on abortion itself shouldn’t lead you to a point where you want doctors lying to patients or ignoring established science.
- Those cute animal pics you’ve been sharing are probably staged, and it’s not always good for the animals themselves.
- Boardgame news – there’s a Kickstarter running for an iOS adaptation of Reiner Knizia’s two-player fantasy game Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation (but without the LoTR branding).
Here’s what really will happen with this law, using the common, totally hypothetical example of denying gays entry, please follow along:
1. A restaurant posts a sign on the door saying “We don’t serve gays.”
2. That restaurant is sued for discrimination.
3. The restaurant owners claim a defense using the RFRA. They would have to state something like, “our religion doesn’t allow us to do business with gays.”
4. The court would evaluate the defendants to determine if they had a sincere religious belief that was burdened by the government.
5. In this case, the court would assuredly declare that the restaurant owners were not “substantially burdened” by allowing gays into their restaurant and find the restaurant owners in violation of various laws, probably first of which is the Civil Rights Act. (In 22 years of RFRA existence no court has ruled otherwise).
6. The plaintiff wins, and the restaurant would be fined or punished into oblivion.
Now if you don’t like that series of events and still want to be furious about the law, you can extend the scenario to the other common hypothetical, which has happened – a business refuses to participate in a same-sex marriage ceremony by providing flowers, cakes, etc. Here’s how this would play out:
1. A gay/lesbian couple requests a baker bake a cake for their wedding ceremony.
2. The baker refuses that particular service, and tells the couple the name of another baker that is amenable to providing that service.
3. The couple sues the baker.
4. The baker claims RFRA in defense, stating “my religious belief is that same-sex marriage is wrong and that we cannot participate in it by providing our service.”
5. Again, the court would evaluate the defendants to determine if they had a sincere religious belief that was burdened by the government.
6. The outcome here is less clear-cut, and it would be case-by-case for the court to determine if the defendant’s religious belief was sincere and legitimate. The baker could lose the case here, or it could go on to the second test. Say the court agrees with the defendant that their religious belief is legitimate…
7. The second test is if the government has a compelling interest in burdening the baker to accommodate the couple. Again, this would be determined case-by-case – the baker could win the case here, or it could go on to the third test. Say the court disagrees with the defendant and states that the government had a compelling interest to enforce some other law…
8. The third/final test is if the couple’s claim is the least restrictive means to serve the public interest (or if there’s a reasonable alternative). Case-by-case again; the baker could win the case by the court saying there was another baker down the street, or the baker could lose the case by saying no.
Hopefully this is helpful to your understanding of what this law is, and what it isn’t.
NanoBot – how good is it for 2 players?
Play two strains each and it’s solid.