The bill was modeled after the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but on NPR this morning a reporter casually mentioned in passing that twentysomething other states have passed “the law”, i.e., a state version of it. But I can’t find any further information about that. Is it an identical law passed in all these other states? Is it in fact true or did I misunderstand what was being said? Etc.
The meat of Indiana’s Senate Bill 101 says:
This is virtually identical to the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The Supreme Court, in City of Boerne v. Flores ruled that while Congress had the power to bind the federal government thusly, it lacked the power to similarly bind the states; the federal RFRA was not applicable to state laws. Following this ruling, Alabama passed the virtually identical Alabama Religious Freedom state constitutional amendment, and Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia all passed virtually identical laws.
And now Indiana has joined their ranks.
There’s a general type of bill like the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and 19 states have versions of it on the books, listed in this wikipedia article. I can’t say whether Indiana’s bill is similar to all of them or not, but here’s the text of the bill:
Opponents of the bill argue that it will strike down local ordinances by the several counties or municipalities that have outlawed discrimination by sexual orientation or gender identity: http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/indianas-anti-freedom-sb-101-moves-forward
I don’t have a link to a summary of proponents’ arguments, but this CNN article says:
Have you tried this website? 
According to this article, there are still 11 states with bills functionally similar to the one that just passed in Indiana in the midst of the respective states’ legislative processes: Colorado (House Bill 1037); Georgia (House Bill 29); Michigan (Senate Bill 4); Missouri (House Bill 104 and Senate Bill 248); Mississippi (House Bill 858); South Carolina (Senate Bill 116 and House Bill 3032); Texas (House Joint Resolution 55, Senate Joint Resolution 10, and House Bill 623); Utah (House Bill 66 and House Joint Resolution 5); Virginia (House Bill 1409 and House Bill 1414); and Wyoming (House Bill 83 and House Bill 26).
(The article is two months old, so it also lists Indiana’s as pending. We now know how that turned out.)
Several of these are proposed state constitutional amendments with wording virtually identical with the Federal law that started this. Others of the bills are more specific, such as authorizing civil and court officers and religious officiants from refusing to sanction same-sex marriages.
So not only are there a lot of states out there with this kind of law, but more coming (assuming the bills get through the process and survive legal challenges. This latter seems more likely for the ones that parrot the Federal Act, since it’s survived some court scrutiny already.)
Notorious?
“Casually mentioned in passing” isn’t what reporters do on NPR?
More to the point, I think “casually mentioned in passing” is a bit understated for an entire 3 1/4 minute segment on Morning Edition.
Maybe the growing prevalence of these kinds of bills was what got mentioned in passing. But that itself is news-worthy and note-worthy enough to not so much be “mentioned in passing” as “highlighted as a critical part of the story”.
The federal RFRA was passed in 1993, and was largely a response to Employment Division v. Smith, where a member of the Native American Church, which uses peyote as part of their religious ceremonies, was fired from his job because he failed a drug test (the court upheld the firing and denial of unemployment). The outcome was substantially different than earlier court cases, where the courts had generally required the government to have a very good reason to infringe upon the practice of religion (“strict scrutiny”). The public was generally outraged by the Smith decision, and passed the RFRA with wide support among both parties. All the RFRA does is basically tell courts to apply the standard that they used to use before Smith.
However, in 1997, the court ruled that the federal RFRA only applied to the federal government, and couldn’t be forced upon the states. So, for example in the relevant case, a municipality could refuse to let a church expand because the church was considered to be in a historic district and the additions would look bad or whatever. The federal RFRA still applies to the federal government: when the UDV church had their hoasca tea seized by customs, the courts made the government give it back to them.
After that, many states started passing state laws that were essentially the same as the federal RFRP.
Remember, the original federal law was widely supported by people across the political spectrum, and the state laws have generally not been widely opposed either. I think it was really when the RFRA featured prominently in the Hobby Lobby case that it became such a polarizing issue.
A lot of people on both sides of the spectrum seem to hope/fear that these laws will allow businesses to discriminate against, for example, gay customers. I don’t really know grounded this belief is: Bricker would know better than I do, but my impression is that there hasn’t really been much case law in this area. There are some states that have both RFRA’s and that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace, and I haven’t found any evidence that they’ve been in conflict, but again, I’m not a lawyer.
I don’t understand this post. Can you explain it to me?
As you are interested in the question of whether I accurately described the report, I’ll casually mention in passing that there was no elaboration in the story (as can be heard at your link) on the statement that other states had passed the law. The fact was mentioned, then the story moved on. That is what I meant by “casually mentioned in passing.”
I have no idea what you mean by saying it was “highlighted as a critical part of the story.” It was mentioned once, in a way that could easily have been missed.
Here is a blog post analyzing several of the state RFRAs as to how they match up with the federal statute.
Well, I listened to the same story on the radio, and I perceived it as a critical point, even if you perceived it as a mere mention. I guess it’s a matter of what you pay attention to.
No, I’m objectively right here. The fact that it was passed by other states is mentioned just one time, is not used to illuminate anything else in the story, and nothing else in the story calls back to it. It falls under the very definition of having been mentioned “in passing.” All signs point to it not being highlighted as critical. You say you listened and “perceived it as a critical point,” but what was it in the story itself which contributed to this perception? The answer is nothing.
Frylock is exactly right. It was “casually mentioned in passing” during the segment. I heard it, too.
I can’t listen to NPR clips, but did the reporter do a sotto voce sort of thing whenbhe said it?
Reading the transcript, there are two mentions of other states. Near the beginning, Cheryl says, “Governor Pence signed Indiana’s new law in a private ceremony, making the state the 20th so far to enact what’s called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
And at end the end: “Last year, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed similar legislation after major corporations criticized that state’s effort to pass a religious liberty law. Governor Pence says he’ll reach out to businesses that have concerns about Indiana’s new law. Meantime, similar bills have been introduced in more than a dozen other states.”
The last mention downplays the reality, unless she means that in ADDITION to the states where the laws have passed, a dozen other states also have bills pending?
I can’t agree that the fact was emphasized as a critical point.
Pretty sure she meant “in addition”. See gnoitall’s link
The states which are newly adopting them are invariably doing so on the grounds that they will allow businesses to discriminate against gay customers (or employees.) To date, there has not been a decision (at least not one upheld at the appellate level) that upheld such an interpretation of a state RFRA, but that is not to say it isn’t possible or even likely. For one thing, there is no legislative history supporting such an interpretation in the states where RFRAs were passed post-Flores. In Indiana and elsewhere, there will be.
ETA: Indiana and its governor have been roundly criticized for adopting the law. It’s all over the news and social media. Hence “notorious”.
You used the word “notorious” …I was looking for you to explain that to me.
…no sense following up on the other part. I’ll strike that from the record if you like.
What if I want to use the law to bar women from my office or store during their period as unclean? Would anything trump my application of the law?
Is there somebody here from Indiana who can explain why this particular 20th or 22nd passage of seemingly identical bills has been the one to blow up into a national news frenzy?
Or is it just one of those things that is suddenly seized upon by (social) media for no identifiable reason?
The rational part of me prefers the former, but the latter appeals to the part of me that is fascinated by why some things garner attention when others don’t, a phenomenon that goes back in news as far as I can trace it.