{"id":11106,"date":"2015-04-02T22:58:25","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T05:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=11106"},"modified":"2015-04-03T00:10:13","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T07:10:13","slug":"holy-smokes-indianas-religious-freedom-law-opens-up-a-whole-new-cannabis-of-worms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=11106","title":{"rendered":"Holy Smokes! Indiana&#8217;s &#8216;Religious Freedom&#8217; Law Opens Up a Whole New Can(nabis) of Worms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/Marijuana_HolyWeed.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">As its reputation goes to pot, it looks like Indiana&#8217;s new &#8220;religious freedom&#8221; law has sparked up more trouble than even Gov. Mike Pence (R) expected.<\/p>\n<p><i>U.S. News<\/i> reports <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/articles\/2015\/04\/02\/indianas-church-of-cannabis-growing-like-a-weed?src=usn_tw\">&#8220;Indiana&#8217;s Church of Cannabis Growing Like a Weed&#8221;<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">A new religion glorifying cannabis is officially incorporated in Indiana, and adherents plan to take full advantage of the state&#8217;s controversial religious freedom law.<\/p>\n<p>That law &#8211; the Religious Freedom Restoration Act &#8211; generally bans state officials from burdening a person&#8217;s exercise of religion, &#8220;even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Opponents say the law blesses discrimination by business owners against people they dislike, with most news coverage focused on the possible effects on sexual minorities.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Levin, founder of the First Church of Cannabis, believes his religion will help restore the state&#8217;s reputation after an intense bout of bad press.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I created the fastest-growing religion in America last week,&#8221; Levin tells U.S. News. &#8220;I&#8217;ve got to cork the leak up that [Indiana Gov. Mike] Pence caused with love.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Levin says he and other church members &#8220;all smoke religiously&#8221; and says supportive attorneys are advising him. He&#8217;s working to find a facility with a large sanctuary.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have people who will be pilgriming in from California, from Maine, from Florida,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I planned this to be a small church of three to five hundred, but the numbers have staggeringly grown.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\n&#8220;Of course I&#8217;m going to test this law. I&#8217;m not going to test it, I&#8217;m going to beat it,&#8221; Levin says. &#8220;We&#8217;re building a church with the cornerstone of love, the way religions are supposed to be built.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As its reputation goes to pot, it looks like Indiana&#8217;s new &#8220;religious freedom&#8221; law has sparked up more trouble than even Gov. Mike Pence (R) expected. U.S. News reports &#8220;Indiana&#8217;s Church of Cannabis Growing Like a Weed&#8221;: A new religion glorifying cannabis is officially incorporated in Indiana, and adherents plan to take full advantage of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[742,44,751,712,126],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-11106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india","category-indiana","category-marijuana","category-religion","category-rights-and-freedoms","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11106"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}