Anti-RFRA momentum must go on

Until yesterday, Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act — signed into law by Gov. Mike Pence — attempted to mimic similar legislation passed by the federal government and 19 other states, but it stupendously failed.

In its original form, the law allowed persons, businesses and any other private entity to refuse to provide service to people of different races, sexual orientations or gender identities on the basis of religious belief, and use the law as a defense if they were ever sued for it. Yesterday, Pence signed an addendum to the law undoing that and clarifying that the law could not be used in that manner. But Indiana, like many states, still does not include sexual orientation in the list of categories protected by its anti-discrimination law, and that must change.

Nineteen other states have RFRAs, and the federal government also passed one in 1993 that sailed through the Senate on a 97-3 vote and was signed by former President Bill Clinton. These laws attempt to impose the following basic protection: If the government wants to “substantially burden a person’s free exercise of religion,” it must demonstrate a “compelling government interest” and act in the least restrictive way of doing so.

But even these laws are too broad and have since been extended far beyond the original intent of their supporters, which was “to be about benign and relatively uncontroversial matters, such as allowing Muslim jail inmates to wear closely trimmed beards, or assuring that churches could feed homeless people in public parks.” Seventeen of the law’s original supporters in Congress have since withdrawn their endorsement, especially after the highly controversial Hobby Lobby decision. There, the Supreme Court gave companies the right to refuse to provide birth control for employees on the basis of religious belief — a provision that was mandatory in the Affordable Care Act — and the court cited the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act as grounds for doing so. Not only is the law now being used to deny women access to birth control, but the federal government, like Indiana, has yet to recognize sexual orientation as a category protected by anti-discrimination laws.

The common thread woven in each of these strings is as follows: The right to free religion is not absolute and must be reconciled with other important rights, namely the right of women and LGBTQ people to be treated equally under the law. Waiters should serve them at restaurants, just like firefighters should put out a fire at a home regardless of the sexual orientation of the people who live there. It is time to stop treating LGBTQ people like second-class citizens, which brings to mind an important, larger question: Why hasn’t Indiana, 29 other states and the federal government passed laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation?

The battles over discrimination are not going to be won and lost in debating broad pieces of legislation that ostensibly protect the freedom of religion; they are going to begin there, and anti-discrimination laws can’t get lost in the noise. Especially when it comes to states that have passed laws protecting religious freedom, of the 19 that have done so, only two also have laws the prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

That some states have selectively chosen to protect religious freedom but still battle gay marriage and countless other measures to protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination represents just how far the needle still has to move on the United States’ moral compass. All of the energy directed at opposing the old iteration of Indiana’s religious freedom law should be martialed into exactly that cause. People should not rest until every state and the federal government not only recognize gay marriage, but also enshrine into law the right of people not to be discriminated by their employers on the basis of sexual orientation.

So let’s further equality because it remains fundamentally important, not just because Indiana decided to attack it. It is easy to oppose infringement of certain rights, but it is another matter entirely to support expanding rights altogether. The media has a woefully short memory, and the Indiana debate has created a moment that might not come again soon. The momentum cannot be squandered. The incredible energy that has been directed at Indiana has taken us off the ledge, but it shouldn’t prevent us from running toward higher ground.

Nathaniel Haas is a junior majoring in political science and economics. His column, “State of the Union,” runs Fridays.