Indiana and Arkansas have changed their state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA) to make it more explicit that it not be used by businesses to discriminate against LGBTs or others of different beliefs. RFRAs were originally created to protect minority religious beliefs from government overreach, like peyote use by Native Americans, and not to allow the majority religions to selectively honor the civil rights of others.
Josh Marshall over at Talkingpointsmemo.com had a great essay on the how RFRAs were perverted by the religious majority:
Tag: LGBTQ
In a previous post, I used the title ‘Indiana Ends Fair And Equal Treatment‘ in response to Governor Pence signing a Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law. RFRA’s have opened the door to discrimination since the federal version was used in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision back in June.
After my post went up I had a person on twitter try to claim that since the United States Supreme Court had ruled the federal RFRA constitutional and Indiana’s version is an exact copy of the federal version then there is no end to fair and equal treatment. That claim isn’t supported by the facts.
I was going to write a long winded post about the ‘Religious Freedom’ law signed by Indiana’s Governor Mike Pence today but I decided Brandan Robertson, on his blog Revangelical, made the kind of point I would be making. Basically, laws like Indiana’s ‘Religious Freedom’ law makes a mockery out of ideals of fair and equal treatment that evolved from the civil rights struggle.
Here is an official photo of the private signing ceremony. Governor Pence is seated at the desk. We know Catholics are well represented but where are the atheists and Muslims?
Today the Mormon church held a press conference to announce they plan to give up fighting LGBT equality. There is a string attached. They want special treatment to express their bigotry in public. The problem is religious people can’t demand special protection for beliefs that can hurt people.
The major conflict in human rights is to balance the rights of all people. You can do whatever you want with your life as long as that action doesn’t hurt others (physically or mentally) and conforms with restrictions from current laws. The basic precept is your rights stop at your neighbors door step. In church and state issues the challenge is to balance religious freedom with the rights set in the US Bill of Rights. In the case of a veteran teacher fired from a Catholic school because it became public she had a same-sex spouse, how far does religious liberty extend.