Title : "The Equality Act... explicitly overrides the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which prohibits the federal government from 'substantially burdening' individuals’ exercise of religion..."
link : "The Equality Act... explicitly overrides the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which prohibits the federal government from 'substantially burdening' individuals’ exercise of religion..."
"The Equality Act... explicitly overrides the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which prohibits the federal government from 'substantially burdening' individuals’ exercise of religion..."
"... unless it is for a 'compelling government interest.' While enacted in 1993 with overwhelming bipartisan support, the RFRA in recent years has been most loudly championed by social conservatives. LGBTQ and civil liberties advocates say the RFRA has been used to allow discrimination. The Equality Act matches Americans’ fast-moving rejection of discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. More than 6 in 10 Americans say business owners should not be allowed to refuse services to LGBTQ people on the basis of religion."WaPo reports in "Equality Act is creating a historic face-off between religious exemptions and LGBTQ rights."
WaPo wants to assure you that RFRA something only social conservatives cherish, but that is history rewritten. RFRA was a reaction to the 1990 case Employment Division v. Smith, which was written by Antonin Scalia, who articulated the strong, clear position that the Constitution does not require religion-based exemptions to laws that are written to be neutral and generally applicable. The dissenting opinions in that case were by the liberal Justices Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun.
As I wrote on this blog a few years ago:
The RFRA bill was sponsored in the House by Congressman Chuck Schumer and in the Senate by Teddy Kennedy. (Each had a GOP co-sponsor). The Democrats controlled Congress, but the Republicans all voted for it too (with the sole exception of Jesse Helms).
From the NYT article in 1993 when President Bill Clinton signed RFRA into law:
President Clinton hailed the new law at the signing ceremony, saying that it held government "to a very high level of proof before it interferes with someone's free exercise of religion."...
President Clinton voiced wonder today at this alliance of forces that are often at odds across religious or ideological lines. "The power of God is such that even in the legislative process miracles can happen," he said.
It's absurd that it's so easy to forget what progressives valued in RFRA and why the liberal Justices dissented in Smith. It was about the rights of minorities. But there are minorities and there are minorities. You can't favor them all. RFRA chose religious minorities. The Equality Act favors gender identity and sexual orientation minorities.
Scalia's Smith allowed Congress to shift back and forth like that. It merely said that legislatures can get away with laws that don't discriminate against religion, that it doesn't have to favor religion. RFRA is just a statute — even if Clinton pronounced it the work of God Himself — and it only takes a statute to change it. The requirement of religious exemptions could have been found in the Constitution's Free Exercise Clause, but the conservative Court did not see it.
Thus articles "The Equality Act... explicitly overrides the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which prohibits the federal government from 'substantially burdening' individuals’ exercise of religion..."
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