Lawmakers are scrambling to create new language for Indiana’s anti-gay “religious freedom” law, but the new text still allows discrimination.
After Mike Pence called for new language to be sent to his desk this week to “fix” the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, lawmakers reportedly have been in “intense negotiations” but finally sent a draft to the Governor. House Speaker Brian Bosma (photo) reportedly met today with “sport and business leaders.”
The Indy Star obtained a copy of the drafted text, and reports that the language “being discussed would specify that the new religious freedom law cannot be used as a legal defense to discriminate against patrons based on their sexual orientation.”
The new measure, if adopted, “doesn’t go as far as establishing gays and lesbians as a protected class of citizens or repealing the law outright, both things that Republican leaders have said they could not support.”
However, the Indy Star also notes that the “proposed language exempts churches or other nonprofit religious organizations — including affiliated schools — from the definition of “provider.”
Those other non-profit nonprofit religious organizations could also include hospitals funded or supported by religious organizations, which would create challenges for LGBT people and women.
One Indiana law professor warns the new language is insufficient.
“The prospect of gays and lesbians being denied service by merchants has been the emotional and symbolic center of this debate,” Steve Sanders, professor at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law told the Indy Star. “But the debate has largely overlooked other activities covered by civil rights laws in various Indiana cities, namely employment and housing.”
“And so, what about employers who fire gays or lesbians for what they claim are religious reasons? Or landlords who refuse to rent to them? Or real estate agents who won’t take them on as clients? If this legislative fix isn’t broad enough to exempt all aspects of civil rights law from the RFRA, people in those lines of business would still be able to use RFRA as a shield against employment or housing discrimination claims.”
And, not surprisingly, anti-gay groups, including the American Family Association of Indiana, who were behind the original law are not pleased.
“At this very moment, the Indiana Senate is considering ‘water-down’ [sic] language to the recently passed and pro-religious-liberty bill, Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” an email from AFA of Indiana’s Micah Clark reads. “Homosexual activists are demanding Christian business owners in Indiana be forced to compromise their faith.”
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