The uproar over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act should be a warning for North Dakota legislators who oppose including all North Dakotans in the basic civil rights of citizenship. It is likely Senate Bill 2279, which passed the North Dakota Senate, will be up for a vote today in the House. The legislation, which prohibits discrimination against gay people in housing and jobs, received a do-not-pass recommendation in committee. The safe bet is the House will turn it down.

That would be a repeat of mistakes made in previous sessions.

And make no mistake about it. Opposition to the bill is overwhelmingly Republican, as evidenced by a letter to GOP lawmakers from the District 45 Republican chairman, John Trandem. In that letter, the chairman played the phony card that he knows LGBTQ people, and he does not discriminate. Good for him. But then he raised the specter that the legislation “is a bonanza for sexual predators and rife with opportunities to make life miserable for people like myself with unwarranted claims.”

If that shameful canard were not enough, he raises the ridiculous who-can-use-a-public-bathroom straw man. So, by his dark lights, the bill should be defeated because it’s bad legislation, and there is no anti-gay bias at work. His letter suggests otherwise.

It’s a simple bill. It’s about ending the exclusion of some people from the civil rights all others take for granted. While opponents claim, as Trandem does in his letter, that opposition “is not about bigotry, slavery, or hatred,” the underlying current in the opposition is precisely about those things, albeit masquerading as protection of religious freedom. Indeed, the way North Dakota law now treats gay residents is akin to making them ride in the back of the bus.

The Indiana situation is instructive. Rights deniers like to characterize reaction to the law’s passage and signing by Gov. Mike Pence as an over-the-top left-wing campaign. But the weight of the opposition is coming from the leaders (mostly conservative Republicans) in business, industry and the big-time sports world in Indianapolis. That wave has been so big that the governor back-stepped like Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire, and said he will sign a “clarification” of the law. Indiana lawmakers, including Republican leaders, are “clarifying” as fast as they can, but the damage to Indiana is done.

North Dakota could find itself in the same harsh national spotlight that is toasting Indiana’s reputation. If SB 2279 goes down, maybe that’s the treatment North Dakota should expect.

Why risk it? The sentiment, especially among young people and many business owners, is not anti-gay. Testimony on the bill from representatives of small and big businesses clearly showed the private sector is far ahead of the Legislature on this issue. Even Utah, which is among the most religiously conservative states in the union, adopted a law that recognizes rights for all and provides protections for religious practice. Surely North Dakotans are wise enough, compassionate enough to do the same.

Or maybe not …

