Bloomberg: Conservatives Regroup on Religious-Freedom Bills
Conservatives Regroup on Religious-Freedom Bills
Apr 14, 2015 5:00 AM CDT
by Josh Eidelson
The core issue at stake? What happens when a person’s religious convictions conflict with the law.
Indiana isn’t the only state having trouble with religious freedom legislation. In March, Georgia’s Senate approved a religious freedom bill. Like similar laws passed the same month in Arkansas and Indiana, it expanded protections for people claiming to be acting according to their religious beliefs. Some Democrats said the vote was rammed through committee during a bathroom break, but the bill had overwhelming support on the Senate floor, where it passed 37-15. It then ran aground in the Georgia House, where moderate Republicans sided with Democrats and added an anti-discrimination amendment that the legislation’s sponsors refused to accept. “The term ‘discrimination’ is a very elastic thing that can mean a lot of different things to different people,” says Republican State Senator Josh McKoon, who sponsored the bill. “It really was going to render the underlying bill meaningless.”
On April 2, the legislature adjourned for the year without sending the legislation on to Governor Nathan Deal. McKoon plans to revive his bill when legislators return in January. He says he isn’t concerned about provoking the public backlash that prompted Indiana lawmakers to backtrack on their bill. The difference, McKoon says, is that his bill sticks to the language of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the 1993 federal law that’s inspired 21 state sequels. That law declared the government “should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification.” It was meant to offer greater protections for people who felt that obeying certain laws would go against their beliefs, and like many of the early state RFRAs, it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. “The federal act provides us with a safe harbor,” McKoon says. Deal, who voted for the 1993 RFRA as a congressman, has made similar comments. “As close as a state can stay to the original language, the safer you are,” Deal told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on April 3. (Through a spokesperson, Deal declined to comment further.)
Christian conservatives who are pushing RFRAs around the country say they come in two models: the Cadillac and the Rolls-Royce. McKoon’s bill, which shields individuals from government intrusion, falls into the Cadillac category. The more ambitious Rolls-Royce versions extend protections for business owners who want to run their companies according to their personal religious beliefs and cover disputes between private parties that don’t involve the government. The bill that Indiana Republican Governor Mike Pence signed on March 26, drawing widespread public condemnation from liberal groups and business interests, was a Rolls-Royce. “I think states will have to count the costs of passing a Rolls-Royce version of RFRA because of what happened in Indiana and Arkansas,” says Bruce Hausknecht, a judicial analyst for Focus on the Family, the evangelical group. “Everyone recognizes what the Rolls-Royce looks like, but the political differences on the ground in each state necessitate getting done what you can get done.”
“The federal act provides us with a safe harbor.”
—Georgia state Senator Josh McKoon
Through its political advocacy arm, Citizenlink, and 38 state affiliates known as Family Policy Councils, Focus on the Family has been central to bringing RFRA bills to state legislators. Activists have long settled for Cadillac legislation they could get passed, but recent Republican gains in state houses have emboldened them to push for Rolls-Royce bills. Lawmakers passed them last year in Arizona and this year in Indiana and Arkansas.
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who foists his fantasies upon others.
And he has a face that just begs to have someone slap the smug off of it.
