I’m trying to wrap my head around all of the discussion about the Religious Freedom Protection Acts.
People shouldn’t be discriminated against, but also shouldn’t be forced to go against their religious beliefs.
Best place to start is with some facts:
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 is a United States Federal law. The bill was introduced by Congressman Chuck Schumer (D-NY). A companion bill was introduced in the Senate by Ted Kennedy (D-MA). A unanimous U.S. House and a nearly unanimous U.S. Senate (three senators voted against passage) passed the bill. President Bill Clinton signed it into law.
There are 21 states that have a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act enacted by their legislature:
Alabama (R) Arizona (R) Arkansas (R) Connecticut (I) Florida (D) Idaho (R) Illinois (R) Indiana (R) Kansas (R) Kentucky (D) Louisiana (R) Mississippi (R) Missouri (D) New Mexico (D) Oklahoma (R) Pennsylvania (D) Rhode Island (R) South Carolina (D) Tennessee (D) Texas (R) Virginia (D)
(R) (D) (I) denotes the party affiliation of the Governor at the time the bill passed.
12 Republican Governors 8 Democrat Governors 1 Independent Governor
Eleven States have RFRA-like provisions that have been provided by state court decisions rather than via legislation:
Alaska Hawaii Ohio Maine Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Montana North Carolina Washington Wisconsin
A total of 32 States have some type of Religious Freedom Protection Act.
The constitutionality of the Federal law was challenged in court and it was determined that it only applied to the Federal Government which is why 32 States passed their own version.
The State laws are very similar to the Federal law, but none appeared to be exact copies.
Couldn’t find any situations of the State Religious Freedom Protection Act laws being used to defend discrimination. Not saying they don’t exist; I just didn’t find any.
Couldn’t find any record of protests against the Federal Religious Freedom Protection Act when it was signed into law by President Clinton.
Conclusions/Observations/Impressions:
The Federal Religious Freedom Protection Act was a product of the Democratic Party. It was voted for by all members of the House of Representatives and 97 of 100 Senators. Wonder who didn’t vote for it and why? Definitely a bi-partisan effort.
Unless you compare all 32 State laws/decisions word for word with the Federal law, which is apparently an okay law since it was signed into law by Bill Clinton, you don’t know which might be discriminatory.
Not sure why the Federal Law and 31 State laws/decisions are acceptable, but the Indiana law is not. I didn’t compare them word for word.
This whole situation looks a lot like the Concealed Carry gun laws controversy to me. In every State that proposed a concealed carry law, liberals, gun control groups and even some police departments predicted Wild West shoot-outs in the street if the laws were passed. It didn’t happen in any of the 40+ states that have concealed carry laws. People are predicting wide-spread discrimination will happen in Indiana if the law is allowed to stand. There probably won’t be.
People are predicting the worst. That passage of the law will allow business to refuse to serve anyone they want. Are they going to put security guards at the door to check sexual orientation before allowing entry? I can’t see this happening. It apparently hasn’t happened based on the Federal law or the other 31 States laws. If it has, it hasn’t been to such a degree to raise national awareness. Why will the Indiana law be different?
All of the incidents I’ve heard of revolve around florists, bakeries, caterers or wedding photographers refusing to service gay weddings. There may be others, but I don’t think McDonalds, Kroger, Walmart, Walgreens, your local Ford dealership or neighborhood laundromat cares about sexual orientation.
I can’t understand why anyone would want to force someone take their money to provide a service when they don’t want to provide. I personally would be suspicious of services provided by someone who was being forced to provide it against their will. Surely there is someone out there that supports or is neutral to your cause that will take your money. You can’t move your cause forward by bullying people into supporting it. You can’t force people to respect you, you have to make yourself worthy of respect.
My experience with the Gay community: I have a very good friend who is Gay. I met her in the military. She ran a small construction/remodeling business and I worked for her part time for years. Through her, I met a lot of her friends. To a person, they were all hardworking, upstanding members of the community. They didn’t hide their sexual orientation, but didn’t wear, “I’m Gay, deal with it” t-shirts either. They were all good people who just wanted to enjoy life. They seemed to deal with discrimination the old fashioned way, they didn’t patronize the discriminating business and spread the word about it.
That being said, I’ll never know how they feel when they find their selves in a discrimination situation. My only experience with discrimination was in a dispute with a big box electronics store. What the heck, it was Best Buy. In my first two interactions with the store, they bent over backwards to attempt to resolve the problem. The third time I visited the store, I was in uniform. The tone changed and all assistance stopped. I was referred to a 1-800 number. The outcome was less than satisfactory. My reaction, I haven’t shopped there since and I mention the story whenever their name comes up.
Footnote: I started this piece a week or so ago, got distracted, finally finished it up. When I started it, the story of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Protection Act was all over the news. Today, it has virtually vanished. Maybe it was as bad as some suspected.