In Indiana, Senate Bill 66—a so-called "Super RFRA ( Religious Freedom Restoration Act )" bill—was stopped Jan. 27, IndyStar.com reported.
The measure, which also would have repealed last year's so-called RFRA "fix," failed to advance from a Senate committee after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brent Steele, R-Bedford, said the "timing is incorrect."
"These rights belong to each and every one of us," the proposal's author, Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis, said, "and I'm trying to protect every one of those rights for everyone in this room."
However, Senate Bill 344—which would add sexual orientation, but not gender identity, as a protected class to state civil rights law—has advanced. The Indiana Senate Rules and Legislative Procedure Committee passed the bill, which now goes to a the full Senate for a vote.
"Senate Bill 344 provides such a broad license to discriminate based on religion that it is nothing short of a Super RFRA," said Camilla Taylor, counsel in the Midwest Regional Office of Lambda Legal, in a statement. "This bill also does not even pretend to protect transgender Hoosiers, excluding them entirely, which is completely unacceptable. As written, SB 344 is designed to hurt LGBT people in Indiana. Anyone who supports this bill doesn't have the best interests of the LGBT community in mind."
There has been a tug-of-war in Indiana and other states between religious conservatives and gay-rights activists, with the latter feeling that RFRAs sanction discrimination.
The original articles are at www.indystar.com .
