ZitatThe greatly anticipated “fix” to the Indiana religious freedom law has been released by the Indiana legislative committee, and it is far worse than conservatives feared.
According to law professor Mark Rienzi, the new fix will allow the state to prosecute Christians criminally for denying gay weddings their professional affirmation.
Rienzi, of the Becket Fund and Catholic University School of Law and who was lead attorney in the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case that upheld a claim under the federal religious freedom law, said this would “criminalize religious objectors.”
The “fix” maintains the religious liberty law in Indiana but says Christian business cannot use the law in declining to endorse a same-sex wedding. Christian business owners — florists, bakers, caterers and others — will now be forced to provide service for religious ceremonies that go against their “deeply held religious beliefs.” But the fix also says the law cannot establish a defense against not just civil actions but also “criminal prosecution.”
ZitatOn Thursday, Indiana Republicans in the state legislature caved to pressure from the left regarding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which simply preserved the right of religious people to act according to their rights in their businesses, so long as those principles did not conflict with a “compelling state interest.”
The amendment to the RFRA actively states that service providers may not use the RFRA as a defense if they refuse to serve people based on sexual orientation. Presumably, the Indiana legislators hope that the RFRA will still protect service providers who refuse to serve same-sex weddings, since failure to serve same-sex weddings is not the same as failure to serve gay clients. But that is a flimsy branch upon which to build an argument for freedom.
In caving to the demands of the left, the state of Indiana actually enshrined more special rights for gays and lesbians than had existed before the RFRA was passed. Indiana law made no reference to sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination statutes prior to the RFRA; now the RFRA itself will be used as a weapon against religious Americans in Indiana who believe that homosexuality is a sin, since the law affirmatively prohibits a religious freedom defense with regard to failure to serve gays and lesbians.
And Pence signed this monstrosity already. RINO! I have lost all respect for him.
As a resident of this state I now need another RFRA to protect me from this RFRA.
And the boycotting and insanity from the left against Indiana continues. This 'fix' solved nothing!