{"id":6325,"date":"2015-09-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2015\/09\/01\/rfra-again\/"},"modified":"2015-09-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-01T00:00:00","slug":"rfra-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2015\/09\/01\/rfra-again\/","title":{"rendered":"RFRA Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Indiana governor Mike Pence held a press conference in order to clarify the
\n\t
\n\t\tIndiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act
\n\t<\/a>
\n\t, criticism became viral. There has been ever more discussion and criticism of the law since. These RFRA fights are the definition of a
\n\tchurch-state\/religious freedom issue, and I felt compelled to write about it. However, because of all the commentary (for example, an admitted subpar piece
\nfrom Russell Moore<\/a> and a more balanced piece from\tHoward Friedman<\/a>), I was feeling all RFRA\u2019ed out. The
\n\tprinciples behind these issues don\u2019t change. You end up saying the same things you always say, just changing the facts to fit the situation. I remember
\n\twriting an article that addressed much of the problem with the type of ideology this state\u2019s RFRA espouses when New Mexico dealt with this issue from a
\n\tjudicial perspective in 2013.<\/p>\n

\n\tGovernor Pence held his press conference and obfuscated his clarification by seeking to defend the law while admitting that it needed to be clarified.
\n\tThrough sleight of hand, semantics, and a lack of knowledge, Governor Pence managed to give the impression that Indiana is now seeking only to clear up a
\n\tmisconception, as opposed to a law with some serious and dangerous flaws.<\/p>\n

\n\tGovernor Pence repeatedly stated that this law was structurally similar to the federal RFRA and the other state RFRAs. When asked certain questions, he
\n\twould meld the two together, saying something to the effect of \u201cThe principle of this law when President Clinton signed it. . .\u201d Except that President
\n\tClinton didn\u2019t sign the Indiana RFRA—Governor Pence did.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Indiana law also allows for the defense to be raised even when the government is not a party to the case. This would allow business owners to raise an
\n\tRFRA defense against potential clients whom they want to discriminate against because of their religious beliefs. These are things you cannot do under
\n\tnormal RFRA statutes, and it is disingenuous for Governor Pence to claim that there are no substantive differences between the Indiana statute and the
\n\tother RFRA statutes that exist.<\/p>\n

\n\tGovernor Pence seemed to have fun saying that the Indiana RFRA does not grant a \u201clicense to discriminate\u201d against anyone. To be fair, much of the noise
\n\taround the passage of the legislation described the Indiana RFRA this way. But the issue is an issue of semantics. Technically, Governor Pence is
\n\tcorrect—RFRA does not grant a license to discriminate. However, the law provided defense for the discrimination at issue—specifically discrimination based
\n\ton sexual orientation.<\/p>\n

\n\tScholars are right to point<\/a>
\n\tout that discrimination of this type has never been allowed by a RFRA defense. The fact that Indiana has no anti-discrimination statute that covers sexual
\n\torientation coupled with the fact that we now live in a post-Hobby Lobby<\/em> and potentially more conservative judicial landscape does not bode well
\n\tfor that streak continuing. This is why the act has garnered so much criticism. It is within the realm of probability that this new RFRA could become a
\n\tdefense for discrimination; and Governor Pence never acknowledged that probability.<\/p>\n

\n\tFinally, it has come to my attention that Governor Pence may have said something that wasn\u2019t quite accurate. Governor Pence was asked whether he thought
\n\tthat there would be all this criticism of RFRA, and answered an emphatic no. It seems that was not accurate. At the end of February, 30 law professors sent
\n\ta letter to Representative Ed Delaney of the Indiana House of Representatives. They warned that this expansion of RFRA would \u201cmore likely create confusion,
\n\tconflict, and a wave of litigation that will threaten the clarity of religious liberty rights in Indiana while undermining the state\u2019s ability to enforce
\n\tother compelling interests.\u201d While the letter was not sent directly to the governor, there were those involved in the process that saw this backlash
\n\tcoming, and Governor Pence could have known, had he thought to look.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the end, this seems to be much ado about nothing. Governor Pence fixed the law to reflect the idea that it may not be used to discriminate.
\n\tUnfortunately, this does not solve what seems to be an intractable problem—how to keep a community together as increasingly competing ideologies begin to
\n\tbreak in different directions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Indiana governor Mike Pence held a press conference in order to clarify the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act , criticism became viral. There has been ever more discussion and criticism of the law since. These RFRA fights are the definition of a church-state\/religious freedom issue, and I felt compelled to write about it. However,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[140],"class_list":["post-6325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-september-october-2015","tag-september-october-2015"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}