No less then seventeen states have introduced legislation this year regarding the creation of, or alteration to, a state religious freedom law. Currently, 21 states have Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs).
Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas currently have a RFRA, but have introduced legislation this year to amend or supplement their law. Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming are looking to add a RFRA or similar law to their state’s laws. Arkansas and Indiana have enacted legislation on this topic in 2015, and Mississippi passed legislation in 2014.
The Bill Stops Here
The state of Georgia has recently been recognized for being yet another state to pass ridiculous legislation to guarantee their right to “religious freedom”. In a state which is 79% non-discriminated against Christian, it’s hard to justify the need for such legislation. Especially since it only seems to benefit the religious majority.
House Bill 757 blends the Pastor Protection Act, which would enable religious leaders to refuse to perform same-sex marriages, and the First Amendment Defense Act, which critics have said would allow tax-funded groups to deny services to gays and lesbians.
The bill’s Senate sponsor, Greg Kirk, a Republican, said the revised bill is about equal protection and not discrimination, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“It only impacts the government’s interaction with faith-based organizations or a person who holds faith-based, sincerely held beliefs as it relates to marriage,” he said.
This sets the precedent for a very slippery slope though. At what point do your rights end and another’s being?
Oregonian Extremism
As an example of how religious zealousness can indeed be harmful I look to an Oregon couple who prayed and rubbed olive on their dying son following a home birth rather than call 911 and seek help will continue to serve six years in prison each after a judge upheld their manslaughter conviction.
Dale and Shannon Hickman, both 30, were both convicted in 2011 of second-degree manslaughter for the death of their son, David, who died nine hours after his home birth in 2009. David was born two months early at his grandmother’s home with undeveloped lungs, and died after having trouble breathing and turning blue.
The Hickman’s – members of a controversial faith-healing church in Oregon – had appealed their conviction, on the grounds that the prosecution had the burden to prove the couple knew their religious beliefs would cause the death of their child, The New York Daily News reported.
But the plea was rejected by the Oregon Supreme Court. A judge also rejected an appeal made by the couple and reiterated that they could have done more to try and save their son. During the 2011 trial, a doctor had testified that David would have had a ’99 percent chance’ of surviving had the couple called 911. The baby officially died of staphylococcus pneumonia, which could have been treated. ‘As the evidence unfolded and the witnesses testified, it became evident to me and certainly to the jury … that this death just simply did not need to occur,’ Judge Robert Herndon said. Prosecutors explained during the trial that David was born with a bacterial infection and underdeveloped lungs.
Mr Hickman said he didn’t call 911 because he was praying. The couple never considered taking the baby to the hospital, prosecutors said. Shannon Hickman said that she must defer to her husband because of church rules.
‘I think it’s God’s will whatever happens,’ she testified
The Followers of Christ Church has a history of r
ejecting medical care for children and relying on as prayer and anointing the sick with oils. Five other church members have been convicted in Clackamas County for crimes related to the rejection of medical care for their children. The Hickmans’ conviction on second-degree manslaughter charges typically requires a mandatory minimum sentence of six years in prison. Two other parents from the church were convicted earlier this year for failing to seek medical care for their infant daughter.
Blind Leading the Blind
This wave of new bills in state legislatures that purport to bolster religious freedom, but that opponents say constitute a troubling new trend to craft a license to discriminate based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and marital or family status. The state efforts are apparently connected to a network with the Christian advocacy group Focus on the Family at its core.
“We are really seeing this dovetailing with LGBT people across the country gaining greater rights,” said Eunice Rho, advocacy and policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes these bills. “We are now seeing this reaction where people are claiming based on religious belief that there should be special authorization to break laws or have new rights.”
After the Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that this federal statute could not be used to compel compliance by the states, many states passed their own Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, or “mini-RFRAs,” with language identical to the federal statute. Today 18 states, including Kansas, have a RFRA.
These mini-RFRAs, said Caroline Mala Corbin, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law, were “perfectly constitutional.” Under the federal RFRA, the plaintiff must prove that the law or state action in question imposes a “substantial burden” on religious exercise. But two states, Connecticut and Alabama, have replaced that test with merely a “burden” standard, and others are attempting such a change. That’s problematic because it’s one thing to exempt people from a law that imposes a religious hardship but it’s quite another when it’s just a minor inconvenience. By taking out the “substantial” requirement, said Maggie Garrett, legislative counsel for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, these states are “making a completely different test,” as RFRA “was never meant to trump anti-discrimination and health and safety laws.”
In addition to taking the word “substantial” out of the statute, new proposals, including those in Idaho, Arizona, Ohio and Mississippi, would allow a twist not permitted under the federal RFRA or any of the original mini-RFRAs: suits against private parties, as opposed to the government, or as a defense in a suit brought by a private party.
Julie Lynde, executive director of Cornerstone Family Council in Idaho, said “The government is now saying, ‘You can worship, just keep it in your house and in your church. Don’t pollute the public square with your faith.’ And that’s not at all what the founders intended.”
Cornerstone in Idaho, the Kansas Family Policy Council, and the Center for Arizona Policy, which supports the bill there, are all part of a network of 38 state “family policy councils” pressing for these laws under the umbrella of Citizen Link, the advocacy arm of the conservative Christian powerhouse Focus on the Family. Citizen Link says its aim is to “help citizens understand and passionately engage in policy issues relevant to families from a foundation firmly established in a biblical worldview.”
The Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington-based conservative think tank, in 2012 created the American Religious Freedom Project (ARFP), with a goal of 50 religious-freedom caucuses in state legislatures. Today, there are 18, in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
My take
I have to ask, if the Constitution of the United States already allows freedom of religion then what do these legislators really think they’re protecting? Clearly it seems they’re a cover for freedom to discriminate. At what point does it stop? If one can justify discriminating against the LGBT community using their strongly held religious beliefs, then why can’t they discriminate against African Americans, Muslims, and women? Biblically one could justify discrimination against all of these groups. In fact, slavery and racial segregation were justified using Biblical scripture. Do we really want to go back to that?
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