Freedom and Religion

Among states considering “religious protection” laws, Indiana stepped up into the line of fire, and drew heavy fire. Utah seems to have worked around many of the challenges faced by Indiana, Arkansas, and others by also passing explicit protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals alongside the “religious protection” law that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) leaders requested earlier in the year.

Tears of Joy on the Senate Floor

While SB 296 drew tears of joy and ecstatic praise in the Utah Senate for extending non-discrimination protection to the LGBT community, its partner act, HB 322, is a “religious liberty” bill, similar to those in other states, that allows claims of religious doctrines to allow certain exceptions to what people perceive as government infringement on their moral standards. LGBT advocates note the contradiction, claiming that Utah’s “Religious Liberty Act” in practice “would utterly eviscerate” the protections afforded by the non-discrimination legislation that had just previously passed, by extending a “license to discriminate” to any company that feels it need not comply with existing laws because of a moral objection.

All Discrimination Laws Up For Exception, Not Just LGBT

Utah’s “religious liberty” bill stands out from the controversial one that arose in Indiana recently, in that it carves out an exemption from all non-discrimination laws, not just those that apply to the LGBT community specifically. Because sexual orientation was not singled out as a justification for discrimination based on religious objection, unlike the recent controversial legislation from Indiana, the furor over the Utah law was muted, if heard at all.

Indiana Restores Freedom

The “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” in Indiana arrogantly implies with its title that the state legislature had to create legislation to “restore” religious freedom. The controversy that has erupted in the wake of the governor signing the law into law saw major sports organizations, computer corporations, celebrities, and millions of ordinary Americans enter the debate on issues touching on same-sex marriage, discrimination, and religious freedom. The heat of the firestorm that the law touched on saw the governor spinning in circles for a time, promising to send the law back to the legislature for a “fix” and then denying that the law needed any improvement.

Sister states including Connecticut and Washington now forbid state-funded travel to Indiana. Now the state’s governor has penned an op-ed defending the law and comparing it to federal religious rights laws. The Indiana law appears to go far beyond what the federal law and its many state counterparts do, however.

Legal experts note that the federal law regulates government conduct as to individual citizens. The new state laws at the heart of the disputes purport to come between individuals, and allow a person or company to claim religious rights to discriminate or to refuse to follow otherwise valid laws.

The Compromise in Utah

The Mormon Church saw the compromise through the Utah legislature, which also saw a companion bill, SB 297, which would allow government officials to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The law provides, however, that the recalcitrant civil servants must refer the applicants to another official who is willing to issue the license. The bill also says that religious believers never need officiate at or recognize a marriage that violates their faith, and that the government cannot punish them in any way for their refusal.

While the LGBT community was not consulted on that bill and so had no say in its form, they were less excited about it than they were about the non-discrimination law. As Equality Utah said of the bill “we are worried that broad individual exemptions may be granted to an unlimited amount of people.”

Working Toward Equality

The uproar over the new law in Indiana has done much to demonstrate that Americans, in general, have no tolerance for intolerance. The notion that a state or business might close its doors to a class of people simply because of who they love seems archaic and out of place in the growing openness of the current country.