Laws designed to protect religious liberty act more like “licenses to discriminate” against sexual minorities, women and reproductive issues, civil rights leaders said Tuesday.
However, despite disapproval from the American Civil Liberties Union and its allies, lawmakers in many states — including Indiana and Georgia — are actively working to pass such laws.
The goal of religious liberty laws are to tell lawmakers and courts that people with sincerely held religious beliefs cannot be forced by government to violate those beliefs.
“We need to be protected from the government interfering in our religious exercise,” said Indiana state Rep. Tim Wesco, sponsor of the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, according to the Indianapolis Star.
But the ACLU doesn’t accept that framing of the issue. “We care about religious freedom,” Louise Melling, ACLU deputy legal director, told a Tuesday press call, noting that her group has fought to protect pastors from overbroad subpoenas, for the rights of students to read Bibles during their free time, and for Christian evangelists to protest.
But while religious freedom is fundamental, “it, like other rights, is not without limits,” she said. “Free exercise to religion gives us a right to our beliefs, but it doesn’t give us the right to harm others, doesn’t give us the right to impose our views on others, it doesn’t give us the right to discriminate.”
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Businesses shouldn’t get to pick and choose who they serve, added Rose Saxe, senior staff attorney in the ACLU’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) and HIV Project.
Court battles have erupted as businesses, schools, hospitals and nonprofits owned by religious people resist government laws requiring insurance for abortion-inducing birth control products or participation in or acceptance of same-sex marriages.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that Hobby Lobby, owned by a devout Christian family, cannot be forced to provide insurance coverage for birth control products it believes aborts an unborn child. In addition, the federal government has a Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Still, many states feel the need to pass their own versions of that bill: Indiana’s religious freedom bill is intended to “provide a broad fence around the core right of the free exercise of religion,” Illinois state Rep. Peter Breen testified Monday on behalf of his neighboring state’s bill.
It “would send a message to those within the government that, when in doubt, err on the side of religious freedom,” said Mr. Breen, who is also special counsel for the Thomas More Society in Illinois.
The Indiana state Senate has already passed the religious freedom bill, as has a state House panel. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence has said he will sign it.
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A similar religious freedom bill in Georgia has passed its state Senate, but faces a tougher battle in the state House, according to an action committee of Concerned Women of America, which supports the bill.
Some religious freedom bills have failed, notably one in Arizona vetoed in 2014 by then-Gov. Jan. Brewer, who said it would “divide” the state.
Utah lawmakers recently enacted a compromise law: It clarifies that people cannot be denied employment, housing or a marriage license based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. It also protects the religious freedom of expression of entities with religious associations, including churches, schools, the Boy Scouts of America and small, family-owned businesses.
Separately, an nationally known Oregon case was in court Tuesday, Lawyers for Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, testified about why they should not have to pay damages to a lesbian couple after they declined to make them a customized wedding cake.
The state has recommended the Kleins pay $150,000 in damages to Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer. Last week, the Bowman-Cryers and their lawyers testified to their fears that, after they protested the Kleins’ refusal to bake them a cake on social media, they would be physically harmed or lose their status as foster parents. The lesbian couple has since adopted their daughters from foster care.
The Kleins, devout Christians who have five children, closed their business in 2013 and now operate out of their home.
• Cheryl Wetzstein can be reached at cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com.
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