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This is why the focus on marriage (as in this thoughtful blog post at the Washington Post) But public approval of anti-discrimination laws is much higher, around 75 percent. Yes, public approval of same-sex marriage has risen sharply, to around 55% today. Pence refused to answer five times on Sunday morning.Īnd unlike marriage, it is not a close one, in terms of public opinion. Should businesses-florists, pharmacies, hospitals, bakeries-be able to say “No Gays Allowed”? This is the question Gov. State RFRAs are a backlash to same-sex marriage-but, legally speaking, they’re not about marriage, but discrimination law. And when RFRAs are out in the open, they’re failing. The fact is, the echo chamber is far from the mainstream. Several have privately expressed a sense of betrayal. Their base is telling them RFRAs are about religious freedom, and then they’re shocked when the mainstream sees it differently. That’s left Republicans across the country exposed. That echo chamber has been so well-funded, and is so insular, that it’s lost sight of the American mainstream, which sees discrimination as discrimination, even if there’s a religious reason for it. They appear to sincerely believe that Christians are being persecuted, and that LGBT people owe them an “olive branch” in the form of religious exemptions. Since then, though, I’ve met and debated these people, and I’ve watched their propaganda. When I started working on this issue two years ago, I thought the “religious freedom” line was just rhetoric to disguise the culture war. Within that far-right echo chamber, RFRA really is about religious freedom.
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Pence says this isn’t about gays and isn’t about discrimination, the people standing behind him when he signed it are a who’s-who of anti-gay social conservatives. Is Pence just lying, then? Well, not quite, because of …. RFRAs allow hospitals not to honor same-sex visitation rights, and doctors not to treat the children of lesbians. To most of us, that looks like discrimination-putting a “No Gays Allowed” sign up on your storefront window.Īnd those are the best cases. The law’s own supporters have used the same examples for years: the baker who shouldn’t have to bake a cake for a gay wedding, the photographer, the florist. Georgia and Oklahoma have shelved theirs, and Texas is likely to follow.
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Jan Brewer of Arizona, you may recall, vetoed her state’s RFRA after the NFL, among others, rebelled. Since Hobby Lobby, the only states that have passed RFRAs are Mississippi-not exactly a bastion of tolerance, commerce, and industry-and Indiana.
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Last year, for the first time, the Supreme Court said RFRA was a sword, as well as a shield, enabling a corporation to deny insurance coverage to its employees. The typical cases were Native Americans using peyote, or churches seeking zoning variances-religious acts that didn’t really affect anyone else. That’s because it was meant as a shield protecting minority religions from government interference. When Bill Clinton signed the federal RFRA in 1993, it passed Congress nearly unanimously. Pence is being knowingly disingenuous when he compares Indiana’s RFRA to others. In fact, Indiana is different, for four specific reasons: Hobby Lobby, the interests supporting this bill, the bill's focus on antidiscrimination, and the role of business.įirst and most importantly, Gov.