State legislature changes language in response to nationwide backlash, and says RFRA bill ‘cannot be used to discriminate against anyone’

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Indiana’s governor has approved the state legislature’s changes to a controversial religious freedom law to clarify that businesses are not authorized to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

Governor Mike Pence had asked lawmakers to clarify the law earlier this week after a backlash led to cancelled conventions and other states moved to ban travel to Indiana. The legislature on Thursday passed the changes, and Pence signed them into law late in the afternoon.

Pence and Indiana have been subject to intense criticism since signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) into law last week. Lawmakers also worked with business leaders to craft the language.



“We can unequivocally say that RFRA cannot be used to discriminate against anyone,” said house speaker Brian Bosma, a Republican.



Under the existing law, the state cannot create legislation that infringes on a person’s religious beliefs – with the definition of person extended to include businesses, associations and other organizations. Because the state does not consider the LGBT community a protected class, the bill was interpreted as a way for businesses and organizations to legally discriminate.

“What was intended as a message of inclusion, inclusion of all religious beliefs, was interpreted as a message of exclusion, especially of the LGBT community,” said Bosma. “Nothing could’ve been further from the truth, but it was clear the perception had to be addressed.”

The amendment clarifies that RFRA does not “authorize a provider to refuse to offer or provide services, facilities, use of public accommodations, goods, employment, or housing to any member or members of the general public on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or United States military service.”

LGBT rights group Freedom Indiana, which has been fighting for RFRA reform, applauded the announcement in a statement.

“While there is still more work to do to ensure that Indiana state law explicitly protects gay and transgender Hoosiers from discrimination, this announcement is progress we couldn’t have imagined just a week ago when Gov Pence signed the law and created immediate national backlash,” Freedom Indiana said.

Former Indianapolis mayor Bart Peterson said that if the amendment is passed, as expected, it would be the first time that “the words sexual orientation and gender identity appear in an Indiana statute” in the context of non-discrimination.

But Bill Oesterle, CEO of local business review website Angie’s List, said in a statement on Thursday morning that the change was “insufficient”, because it did not fully repeal RFRA.

“Employers in most of the state of Indiana can fire a person simply for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning,” Oesterle said. “That’s just not right and that’s the real issue here. Our employees deserve to live, work and travel with open accommodations in any part of the state.”

The company put its 1,000 person job expansion on hold in response to Pence signing RFRA on Thursday of last week.

After Pence signed the RFRA into law, the backlash was swift and fierce, making the state a subject of international criticism.

Companies like Salesforce.com said they would no longer send employees to Indiana for work and organizations like the NCAA said they were reconsidering plans to host the Final Four in Indianapolis.

Pence and other Republican leaders initially blamed the reaction on a “mischaracterization” of the law and noted that Indiana is the 20th state to enact such a law, building on the federal RFRA that former president Bill Clinton signed into law in 1993.

But the state’s recent history led many to believe that the bill was motivated by anti-gay sentiment.

In October 2014, a surprise supreme court decision made same-sex marriage legal in Indiana. At last week’s bill signing, leaders of staunchly conservative groups opposed to same-sex marriage stood alongside Pence.

And in 2011, one of the bill’s authors, state senator Dennis Kruse, led a coalition in support of HJR6, a bill that attempted to block the state from ever legalizing same-sex marriage and prohibit the government from offering protections to same-sex couples in things like civil unions or domestic partnerships.

Pence, however, was insistent that the bill did not give businesses “a license to discriminate” and said that he “abhors discrimination”.

He also said that amending the bill to include protections for LGBT people was “not on his agenda”, although many other states with these religious freedom laws do provide these protections. Indiana still does not consider LGBT people a protected class, but Speaker Bosma said discussions about such a change had begun.

Democratic legislators had warned of potential backlash to the bill, but on Thursday, lawmakers said that they did believe that anyone behind the legislation had introduced it to give people the right to discriminate.

“Honestly, the language wasn’t needed to clarify the statute legally,” said Bosma. “It is needed to clarify the perception.”

Conservative activist group Advance America, a key proponent of the bill, said that the amendment proposed on Thursday would “destroy” RFRA.

“Among the things that will happen, Christian bakers, florists and photographers would now be forced by the government to participate in a homosexual wedding or else they would be punished by the government! That’s not right,” the group said in a statement.