Oliver Thomas

The nation is astir over words from our benighted past that we hoped we would never have to hear again. Your kind is not welcome here.

The debate over Christians refusing to be involved in gay weddings brings to mind a darker time when the "Curse of Ham" from Genesis was once used by Southerners to justify racial segregation. But today's debate is different.

Now, most of America's religious institutions still consider marriage between members of the same sex to lie beyond the scope of God's will. No doubt that will change. Just a short time ago, a majority of Americans opposed gay marriage. Today's young people seem to care less.

But as the culture changes, what of the religious freedom laws that allow people to act on these anti-gay beliefs even as their ideas are rejected by an emerging majority of Americans? And what of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act being used to challenge Obamacare's mandate that employers provide contraceptives as part of their health plans, and which will be argued before the Supreme Court next week?

Large bipartisan majorities passed the restoration law and its state counterparts to correct the Supreme Court's 1990 decision to downgrade religious freedom from its preferred status alongside freedom of speech and of the press. As a result of that decision, halting the use of peyote among Native Americans, government restrictions on the exercise of religion would no longer be subject to "strict scrutiny." Instead, such laws would be upheld as long as there was a rational basis.

The result was a drumbeat of court decisions against religion: Sikh construction workers ordered to swap turbans for hard hats; Amish farmers forced to affix warning signs to their buggies (impermissible "worldly symbols") rather than reflector tape. The list was long.

So a sprawling coalition of religious and civil liberties groups, ranging from the ACLU to the National Association of Evangelicals, joined forces with congressional odd fellows Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch to remedy the problem. With only three dissenting votes, Congress restored the protections the Supreme Court had jettisoned. More than a dozen states did the same. The new laws were no stalking horse for bigotry; they protect the most fundamental of all American rights — freedom of conscience.

The problem with some of these state laws, is that they go far beyond restoring religious freedom. Wide latitude for acting on religious beliefs would be replaced by a license for unrestricted bigotry. That we cannot do. The beauty of the restoration act's standard is its flexibility. Courts can compare the burdens on both the complaining party and the conscientious objector. It is one thing to object to snapping pictures at a gay wedding. Quite another to refuse to provide food or medical treatment.

We may long for the day when people become more accepting of one another, but achieving that end by forcing people to violate their own conscience tears at the already frayed cords that bind us together as a nation. Call me Pollyanna, but I believe we can have equality for gays and lesbians and religious freedom. Contraceptive coverage for women and liberty of conscience.

Oliver Thomas, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, was chairman of the Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion that drafted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

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