"This year, Three Floyds' Dark Lord Day will double as a craft beer-soaked protest rally."

Speaking as a beer fan of longstanding, and in no official capacity whatever, please permit me to say just this one thing.

Thank you, Nick Floyd.

Nick is speaking much needed truth to power with regard to Indiana's disastrous RFRA legislation, as engineered by Indiana's GOP "super majority." Some might say that those in Nick's position should be more circumspect, and refrain from taking a position, especially given that many of these same legislators have favored Indiana's brewing business.

Not me. I believe they need to be called out, early and often.

RFRA, even as hurriedly revised when the backlash ka ka hit the fan, is a monstrous act of stupidity. It did harm to Indiana's brewing industry, and modifications aside, it will continue to do so. We must speak out whenever and wherever we can. As our customers are injured, so are we.

Thanks again, Nick.

Three Floyds Makes Dark Lord Day Pro-Gay With Big Freedia Show, by Mark Konkol (DNAinfo - Chicago)

This year, Three Floyds' Dark Lord Day will double as a craft beer-soaked protest rally.

The target: Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and his state’s controversial Freedom of Religion Restoration Act — the so-called “anti-gay” law that prompted national outrage from politicians, liberal activists and rock bands alike.

“We’re fighting the power of the governor of Indiana over the freedom of religion act, or whatever it’s called, that basically makes it legal to discriminate against anyone,” Three Floyds brewer-owner Nick Floyd said.

So, at Saturday’s annual celebration of Three Floyds Brewery’s Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout — the only day you can buy what many craft brew geeks consider the world’s best brew — Floyd added a gender-bending performer to co-headline its hard rock lineup of bands with the reunited original lineup of heavy metal rockers Corrosion of Conformity.

Floyd, who lives in Ukrainian Village, said his Munster, Ind.-based brewery also got calls from people asking him to protest the law by canceling Dark Lord Day — the one day of the year you can buy Three Floyds' Russian Imperial Stout — in protest of the controversial law.

“I tell them, ‘Look, Dark Lord Day is the biggest f--- y--- to that law,” Floyd said. “One lady even wanted to sell her ticket because she wants us to boycott [the law.] I had to tell her we’re on your side. We’re fighting back, and the best thing to do is come here and support us.”

RFRA and the damage done: Legislators have some explaining to do.

With the exception of five lonely defectors in the Indiana House, including my own state representative Ed Clere, the state's Republican majority dropped a neutron bomb on Indiana business when it pushed RFRA through to Governor Pence. It has since been amended, but ample damage waa done.

The PC: Our bedfellows are becoming stranger with each passing legislative session.

It is bad law, a regrettable over-reach (the GOP enjoys a super majority in Indiana state government), a human rights disaster, and a body blow to the state's business climate -- all of these being purely negative aspects, and yet the saddest part of it might be the grubby, small-minded pettiness of the politics involved, and how, with a stroke of his gilded crayon, Pence has deposited this bundle of divisive bile at all our front doors, to foul all our communities.

These are the same legislators who've been so conducive to measures favoring the growth of Indiana-brewed beer. Understanding that this is my personal opinion only ... but don't some of our "friends" need to explain in greater detail why this happened?

Surely RFRA must rank as one of the greatest unforced errors in recent Hoosier political memory. From the perspective of beer and brewing, it's worth remembering that the same fundamentalist constituency being pandered to with RFRA forms the backbone of Prohibitionist sentiment in Indiana. That's worrisome.

My state senator, Ron Grooms, has responded to principled criticism of his unqualified support for RFRA by digging ever deeper bunkers of denial, and insisting that RFRA was misunderstood.

But the problem for Grooms is that we understand all too well.

Honesty, anyone?

Business Insider: Only group effort can clean up RFRA fallout, by John Ketzenberger (Indy Star)

... Downtown Indy's Senior Vice President Bob Schultz said last week there were more than 700 million Internet impressions of the phrase "Boycott Indiana" in the first four days after the governor signed the bill. He called the reaction a "catastrophe" for local business.

While the loss of dollars and cents won't be determined for months and may never be known for certain, the damage is already done for those who match talent with jobs in Central Indiana.

"This has played into every stereotype," said David Phoebus, an executive recruiter for Indianapolis-based Vaco. "You know, like the sign at the state line that says, 'Welcome to Indiana, set your clocks back 200 years.' "

Indiana breweries: "Open to serving all people, assuming they are of legal age to drink."

This enriching personal testimonial explains the wider stakes of Indiana's ill-considered Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) better than I ever could -- and I've tried my best.

First, the lamentable backdrop.

The RFRA was overwhelmingly approved by Indiana's Republican "super majority" and signed into law as quickly as possible by Governor Mike Pence. Within nanoseconds, a tidal wave of social-media-driven revulsion seemingly from across the planet forced hasty and disingenuous backpedaling, and subsequently the law was amended to include safeguards against anti-LGBT discrimination (of course, this being the law's original and barely disguised intent).

However, note that as it pertains to discrimination in pre- and post-RFRA senses, Indiana's LGBT community as yet is entirely unprotected by state law. In Indiana, state law prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), disability, age, ancestry and sealed or expunged arrest or conviction records.

Bizarrely, discrimination is prohibited on the basis of off-duty tobacco use.

Tobacco? Smoke 'em if you've got 'em, at least when you're not at work ... but LGBT? No protection. It's a situation that needs to be rectified, as soon as possible, lest the GOP's resident medievalists prompt another humiliation for our state.

Overall, it must be said that Indiana's business community responded well to this provocation. As noted by the correspondent Hinkle, roughly half of Indiana's breweries quickly posted "this business serves everyone" notices. The Brewers of Indiana Guild was a bit slower to issue a reply, but only because there was a scheduled meeting coming, anyway, and the topic was on the agenda.

Opinion at the meeting was unanimous, and I view our "we make many different beers for many different people" stance as vigorous and accurate.

This shouldn't have happened. If we remain focused, it won't happen again.

RECOGNIZING HOOSIER HOSPITALITY AT OUR GREAT BREWERIES AND THEIR DECISION TO REACT TO INDIANA'S RFRA, by Kira Hinkle at Indiana on Tap.

There are three things that I truly care about in life: my family, my job and beer.

Two years ago this Friday, my wife and I traveled to NYC to get (gay) married. We celebrated our legal marriage at The Pony Bar in Midtown, a craft beer bar with a stellar draft list and a reputation for being a hang out spot for the founders of Untappd. For our one-year anniversary we traveled to Three Floyds. During our visit we repeatedly commented on how happy we both were to marry someone equally obsessed with beer and returned home with a trunk full of bottles. This year, we are continuing the tradition by celebrating at Brew Kettle. We’ve already planned a visit to Belgium for year 25.

I’ve never felt Hoosier Hospitality more than when I sit in a brewpub. I’d go on to argue that breweries in general are some of the most welcoming and accepting businesses towards all communities, not just the LGBT community. Belly up at a bar, your sexual orientation, religious beliefs or political opinions mean little, so long as you’re a beer enthusiast willing to talk barley, yeast and hops until closing.

The PC: Our bedfellows are becoming stranger with each passing legislative session.

The PC: Our bedfellows are becoming stranger with each passing legislative session. 

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

You won’t need to look far amid my scribblings to locate frequent praise for the Indiana “craft” brewing scene. I’m proud of my state when it comes to better beer.

In five years since 2010, we’ve come close to tripling the number of Hoosier breweries, and while it seems a new establishment opens in Indianapolis every week, smaller communities from Aurora to Martinsville to Needmore are being represented, too. It’s overdue, and welcomed.

This Wednesday, I’ll make the drive up I-65 to Indianapolis for a regular board meeting of the Brewers of Indiana Guild (BIG). It isn’t an ordinary week in the state capital. For one, college basketball’s Final Four will be staged there beginning on Saturday, with all attendant sports-driven hoopla. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that just last week, my state made international headlines with a controversial new law, overwhelmingly approved by both legislative bodies and promptly signed by Governor Mike Pence. Because of SB/HB 101, known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), there are mounting calls to boycott Indiana.

Some, including Keith Olbermann, Charles Barkley and Dave Zirin, have gone so far as to urge the NCAA, which is headquartered in Indianapolis, to move the Final Four elsewhere in protest. This is unlikely, but the NCAA has indicated its displeasure, meaning Indiana might be denied future athletic spectacles. That’s bad for all our bottom lines, beer or not.

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This is nothing more than a beer column, and it would be impossible to include a detailed explication of the issues surrounding the RFRA firestorm. Quoted below is a letter written in February by 30 legal scholars to Rep. Ed DeLaney of the Indiana House of Representatives, but before lifting a key passage, first permit me to state clearly that speaking personally, not as a BIG board member, a brewery owner, a militant atheist or a serial admirer of Noel Gallagher, but as a simple human being, I strongly oppose RFRA, and I am utterly revolted by what it stands for.

It is bad law, a regrettable over-reach (the GOP enjoys a super majority in Indiana state government), a human rights disaster, and a body blow to the state's business climate -- all of these being purely negative aspects, and yet the saddest part of it might be the grubby, small-minded pettiness of the politics involved, and how, with a stroke of his gilded crayon, Pence has deposited this bundle of divisive bile at all our front doors, to foul all our communities.

The scholars say:

In our expert opinion, the clear evidence suggests otherwise and unmistakably demonstrates that the broad language of the proposed state RFRA will more likely create confusion, conflict, and a wave of litigation that will threaten the clarity of religious liberty rights in Indiana while undermining the state’s ability to enforce other compelling interests. This confusion and conflict will increasingly take the form of private actors, such as employers, landlords, small business owners, or corporations, taking the law into their own hands and acting in ways that violate generally applicable laws on the grounds that they have a religious justification for doing so. Members of the public will then be asked to bear the cost of their employer’s, their landlord’s, their local shopkeeper’s, or a police officer’s private religious beliefs. As we have learned on the federal level, RFRAs do not “open a door” to conversation, but rather invite new conflict that takes the form of litigation. This collision of public rights and individual religious beliefs will produce a flood of litigation, whereby Indiana courts will be asked to rebalance what has been a workable and respectful harmony of rights and responsibilities in a pluralistic society.

In layman’s terms, the RFRA likely will facilitate discrimination, especially against the LGBT community, and precisely from those unreconstructed bigots in the retail and service sector of the economy who stand to create the greatest visibility for their prejudices.

That’s bad for all of us in Indiana, beer or otherwise.

---

As a leftist of long standing, a supreme irony of my tenure as a director on the Brewers of Indiana Guild board is that much of the success of our legislative lobbying effort in recent years, from Sunday carry-out growler sales to artisan distilling, can be attributed to Republican support in the legislature. After all, Democrats barely exist any longer.

What this means is that often I must excuse myself, visit the nearest restroom, splash cold water on my face, look into the mirror, remind myself that I’m an adult capable of being a pragmatist and embracing the art of compromise – then rejoin the meeting at hand and keep my big mouth shut.

Later, back home, there’ll be time for a shower. Or six.

All of Indiana’s Republican senators voted in favor of RFRA. All but five of my state’s Republican representatives did the same, although among this group was Rep. Ed Clere, from my New Albany district, who also broke from the GOP during last year’s ugly same-sex marriage votes. I thank him.

Clere has been a solid friend to Indiana breweries during his time in the House, and so have several other Republican representatives and senators, although unlike Clere, they all voted in favor of a bill that now, even as I write, is producing a backlash that runs entirely counter to BIG’s stated mission to grow and nurture Indiana beer.

In fact, RFRA is managing to unite folks all across the country – against my state.

We’re being looked upon as a ludicrous banana republic (at best) or an embryonic one-party fascist state (at worst), and either way, we’ve become a target for derision and economic sanctions not unlike those imposed on South Africa during apartheid.

Except those sanctions were a good idea, but damn it, these – they’re directed against me and mine! Thanks, Pence.

Intellectually, I completely understand the impulse to boycott Indiana, and indeed, I am hard-pressed to dispute the rationale, even though I’ve spent my entire adult life, something like 35 years, differing loudly and publicly from the right-wing political and religious ideology spurring abominations like RFRA.

Consequently, is this what it felt like during the run-up to the American Civil War, to be a Unionist isolated in East Tennessee … or a Copperhead in Central Indiana?

Even then we had issues. Splash some more water, maybe have a beer. Deep breaths all around.

---

So ... there’s a BIG board meeting on Wednesday, and it should be interesting to see what happens. Will we adapt a public position against RFRA? I believe we should. At the barest of minimums, a positive statement should be issued, stressing that Indiana breweries serve everyone – of course, so long as you’re 21 years old and not intoxicated.

I believe we should commend Rep. Clere, while letting our other purported “friends” in the legislature know, in no uncertain terms, that when it comes to a “substantial burden” in the voguish parlance of this bill’s language, we’re the actual businesses who’ll be feeling that substantive weight. Now, in addition to the chore of convincing drinkers to give Indiana beer a try, we also have to persuade them NOT to boycott our products. Thanks again, Pence.

Speaking for myself, I don’t feel like backing down and accepting bigotry and intolerance. I’ve lived in Indiana my whole life, and it’s my state, too. I’ll do what I can, and keep you posted.