Indiana is about to have its own Religious Freedom ?Restoration Act.
The Indiana State Senate passed the religious “freedom” bill with a 40-10 vote Tuesday.
As someone who loves the First Amendment, this sounded great based on its title, though I wasn’t aware religious freedom was under attack.
Then I actually read it.
Though one of the bill’s authors, Sen. Scott Schneider, R—Indianapolis, said in defense of the bill, “You don’t have to look too far to find a growing hostility toward people of faith,” the details tell a different story.
Though the bill does put into place some reasonable protections for employees, the darkest and most manipulative part of the bill allows for businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples service ?under the guise of religion.
It is an interesting strategy by the state government to institutionalize discrimination through the people rather than its bureaucracy, yet unfortunately Indiana isn’t the only state to do so — and some governments are ?getting more ambitious.
The state of North Carolina voted Wednesday to allow government workers the right to refuse marrying same-sex couples, seemingly in response to the controversy in Alabama last week.
It seems governments — or perhaps just politicians — are getting desperate to hold on to the good old days of the 1990s, when open discrimination was not only acceptable on the national stage but was actually politically beneficial.
Unfortunately for them, that is not the world we live in today.
And we see right through their last-ditch effort to tell members of the LGBT ?community they are inferior. What strikes me most, however, is the way they are doing it.
Taking a page out of the Hobby Lobby book, states are trying to allow people to use religion to make business, financial and personal choices for those they disagree with.
Though I might sympathize with such a “marginalized” group of people who make up 75 percent of the population, I can’t help but think they might be ?exaggerating this “War on Faith.”
As a person of faith myself, I am disgusted by Christians who use the same faith I follow to discriminate against those they disagree with, whether it be members of the LGBT community, women or the poor.
And I am even more disgusted when they play the victim card any time they don’t get their way.
Speaking as a Christian, it is time for Christians to realize they are living in a pluralist society.
There are people around us different from ourselves, and that doesn’t make them sinners. Furthermore, not getting everything you want doesn’t mean society is attacking your faith.
It is time for Christian America to grow up and admit this isn’t about religious beliefs but political ?differences.
Religious freedom does not give us the freedom to force our beliefs on anyone else, and until we can understand that, true progress will never be made.
thompjak@umail.iu.edu
