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Indiana Governor Signs Anti-Gay “Religious Freedom Act,” Pisses Everybody Off

Riese —
Mar 26, 2015

feature image via destructoid

This morning, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana signed Senate Bill 101 into law in a private ceremony, surrounded by nuns:

SB 101 is a “religious freedom” law that “could allow business owners to refuse services to same-sex couples.” In other words, it makes it legal for homophobic assholes to let their homophobic asshole flag fly and make all their homophobic asshole dreams come true. In official complicated words, the law does this:

Prohibits a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the governmental entity can demonstrate that the burden: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling governmental interest. Provides a procedure for remedying a violation. Specifies that the religious freedom law applies to the implementation or application of a law regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity or official is a party to a proceeding implementing or applying the law. Prohibits an applicant, employee, or former employee from pursuing certain causes of action against a private employer.

The Republican-controlled house passed the measure with a 63-31 vote on Monday. This morning, 75-80 religious leaders, conservative lobbyists and “supportive lawmakers” joined the governor in the signing ceremony. After signing, Mike Pence informed the press that everybody is freaking out over nothing:

“This bill is not about discrimination, and if I thought it legalized discrimination in any way in Indiana, I would have vetoed it. In fact, it does not even apply to disputes between private parties unless government action is involved. For more than twenty years, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act has never undermined our nation’s anti-discrimination laws, and it will not in Indiana.”

Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane begs to differ:

“Although not unexpected, it is still extremely disappointing that Governor Pence endorses this out-of- touch, discriminatory legislation. Not only is this law unnecessary, it unfortunately has already portrayed our state as intolerant, unfriendly, and backwards; things which I believe most Hoosiers reject.”

It seems there’s been a larger push for these laws in the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision. Jerks were inspired by the success of other jerks to pursue their own jerky agendas — and it’s working.

The NCAA, which is headquartered in Indiana and hosts its Final Four in Indianapolis every four years, has spoken out against the bill. NCAA president Mark Emmert told the press:

“The NCAA national office and our members are deeply committed to providing an inclusive environment for all our events. We are especially concerned how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees. We will work diligently to assure student-athletes are competing in, and visitors attending, next week’s Men’s Final Four in Indianapolis are not impacted negatively by this bill. Moving forward, we intend to closely examine the implications of this bill and how it might affect future events as well as our workforce.”

Mark Benioff, CEO of cloud computing company Salesforce, made an announcement this morning that he intended to “dramatically decrease” his investment in Indiana, saying on twitter that “today we are canceling all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination.” Salesforce Marketing Cloud (formerly ExactTarget) is headquartered in Indianapolis. On twitter, Benioff called on other CEOs of the Tech Industry to “pay attn to what is happening in IN & how it will impact your employees and customers.”

Clear Software CEO Jon Gilman penned a letter, signed by the CEOs of CloudOne, Salesvue, LeadJen, Lesson.ly and, obviously, Salesforce, which was delivered to the Governor at 8 a.m. this morning. It read, in part:

“As leaders of technology companies, we not only disagree with this legislation on a personal level, but the RFRA will adversely impact our ability to recruit and retain the best and the brightest talent in the technology sector. Technology professionals are by their nature very progressive, and backward-looking legislation such as the RFRA will make the state of Indiana a less appealing place to live and work.”

Tech leaders and sports leagues aren’t the only ones threatening to pull business form the state. Gen Con, Indianapolis’s largest convention in attendance and economic impact, has threatened to move their event somewhere nicer to gay people if the bill isn’t vetoed. CEO Adrian Swartout sent a letter to Pence saying:

“Legislation that could allow for refusal of service or discrimination against our attendees will have a direct negative impact on the state’s economy, and will factor into our decision-making on hosting the convention in the state of Indiana in future years…. Gen Con proudly welcomes a diverse attendee base, made up of different ethnicities, cultures, beliefs, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities, and socio-economic backgrounds. We are happy to provide an environment that welcomes all, and the wide-ranging diversity of our attendees has become a key element to the success and growth of our convention.”

Over 56,000 people attend the gaming convention, touted as “the original, longest-running, best attended gaming attention in the world,” bringing $50 million to the local economy.

Gen Con via doingindy

Gen Con via doingindy

Visit Indy, Indianapolis’s tourism bureau, has been speaking out against the bill from the get-go, citing concerns that “there could be a misperception with this bill that doesn’t paint a picture of being a warm, welcoming, hospitable place. It doesn’t align with the brand that is Indianapolis.” Visit Indy Spokesman Chris Gahl told The USA Today that an annual music festival has also already threatened to leave the city. Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard agrees that this measure is a disgrace to Indiana, arguing that “I don’t believe this legislation truly represents our state or our capital city. Indianapolis strives to be a welcoming place that attracts businesses, conventions, visitors and residents.”

The Disciples of Christ had also threatened to cancel their 2017 Indianapolis convention, which is expected to bring $5.9 million to Indianapolis, if the Governor chooses to sign the bill. “Our perspective is that hate and bigotry wrapped in religious freedom is still hate and bigotry,” said The Disciples of Christ associate general minister Todd Adams. The letter they sent to the governor noted that “we are particularly sensitive to the values of the One we follow — one who sat at (the) table with people from all walks of life, and loved them all.”

Others who have spoken out include Indianapolis-based author John Green (The Fault In Our Stars), MMA fighter and former Purdue football player Matt Mitrione, NBA player Jason Collins and actor George Takei.

In an op-ed in the Lafayette Journal & Courier, Reverend Steve Viars informed the public that everything is totally fine and this bill has no negative implications whatsoever for anybody. “Every group has its lunatic fringe. There are a few religious people seeking unreasonable accommodations to their theological beliefs, and there are a few liberals seeking to stifle religious expression wherever it’s found,” he wrote, before telling a story about an “activist from Chicago” who wanted to move into his faith-based apartment community and, when told the community had no vacant units, stated that “he and his boyfriend from Washington D.C., were coming to town the following week anyway and insisted that we show him a residence.”

“Of course they had no interest in actually living at our faith-based covenant community,” Viars concluded. “They just wanted to bully our female volunteer and pick a fight.” It’s unclear how Viars drew that conclusion, what that story has to do with this law or how, if the actual reason for the prospective tenant’s rejection was (as Viars claims) a lack of vacant units, this law could’ve protected him from these unpleasant phone calls. Viars claimed the law will “serve as a helpful teacher,” “function as a civilizing moderator,” and “act as a clarifying arbitrator.” His explanations of those abstract concepts were, in my opinion, too insufficient to attempt to tackle here.

Indianapolis Gay Pride Parade, June 2014 (photograph by Chris T Pehlivan)

Indianapolis Gay Pride Parade, June 2014 (photograph by Chris T Pehlivan / shutterstock )

But is the measure largely symbolic? 19 other states have laws like this on the books, after all. Daniel Conkle, IU Maurer School of Law professor, apparently told lawmakers that “to date there has been no successful claim that I’m aware of anywhere in the country, even by a wedding vendor who asserts a religious objection, to provide services to a wedding.” That didn’t stop Arizona governor Jan Brewer from vetoeing a similar bill in Arizona last year, though, after pressure from local businesses.

Retired Bishop Gene Robinson wrote in The Daily Beast that this law “would open the floodgates for citizens/corporations to exempt themselves from all kinds of laws, merely by claiming that it violates their religious beliefs.” He mentions an anesthesiologist who refsused to anesthetize an abortion patient and raises the hypothetical situations of a pharmacist refusing to dispense birth control or Truvada (“the Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) drug used by gay men (and others) to lessen their risk for being infected with HIV”).

If nothing else, this law has already and will continue to suck up time and resources from a government with much more important fish to fry. Its application is so fuzzy that any cases that make it to the court because of it are likely to be giant headaches with minimal positive impact on anybody involved. “My goodness, can Indiana Republicans just get past an anger over gays and lesbians that borders on the obsessive?” asks Matthew Tully in The Lafayette Journal-Courier . “After losing their war over same-sex marriage last year, Statehouse Republicans have joined a national conservative effort to create a crisis that doesn’t exist.” He concludes: “It doesn’t matter whether this new law is limited in scope. The fact that it will be a law at all is shameful. And it’s going to hurt Indiana… if the legislature were trying to reinforce Indiana’s image as a backwater, it couldn’t have done better than this.”

I keep remembering this thing my now-girlfriend said to me last summer about why she’d left Indiana in the first place. We were hiking in the Oakland hills, traipsing paths that offered panoramic views of one of the most LGBT-friendly and downright gorgeous geographical areas in the country. I was saying how even though I’m not in love with California, I am in love with the scenery — the ocean, the mountains, the weather. She insisted that for her, no state would ever be as beautiful as Indiana. I asked why she’d left, then, and her response was something like, “how long can you keep on wanting a place that doesn’t want you back?”

The legalization of same-sex marriage this past year was a big step towards making Indiana more welcoming to its LGBTQ residents. But even if things are getting better for residents of cities like Bloomington and Indianapolis, there’s a huge swath of the state where LGBTQ folks don’t feel safe, let alone comfortable, being who they are. We can only hope that the swelling support for Indiana’s LGBTQ community and the opposition to this law from the business community will make some impact. The queers of Indiana deserve a home that wants them back. We all do.

Brown County State Park, Indiana

Brown County State Park, Indiana

 

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