The Lesson of Mississippis HB 1523: Religious Freedom Must Mean Religious Freedom for All

[rug]

Edie Windsor and her lawyer Roberta Kaplan (left) make a statement to the media in front the Supreme Court on March 27, 2013.
Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

JAN. 4 2017 12:40 PM
By Roberta Kaplan
Roberta (Robbie) Kaplan is the litigation partner at Paul, Weiss LLP who represented Edith Windsor in the landmark case of United States v. Windsor in which the United States Supreme Court held in June 2013 that a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violated the U.S. Constitution. She is the author of the book Then Comes Marriage: United States v. Windsor and the Defeat of DOMA (W.W. Norton), which was chosen by the L.A. Times as one of the top 10 books of 2015.

Ted Cruz recently gave his supporters a belated Christmas present when he announced that he planned to re-introduce a bill called the First Amendment Defense Act. Like other opponents of LGBTQ equality, Cruz has come to realize that rather than denigrating the common humanity of gay and transgender people, or trying to overrule the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, they are better off using religion as their weapon of choice.

Although their bill is labeled the First Amendment Defense Act, it is flatly inconsistent with the language of the First Amendment, which states in pertinent part that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The problem with FADA is that not only does it authorize—even encourage—discrimination against LGBTQ people, but it “establishes” only some religions and some religious views, not the religions or religious views of many others. Believe me, I know—my clients, the Campaign for Southern Equality and Episcopal Vicar Susan Hrostowski, have been fighting a similar law (HB 1523) passed in Mississippi.

Like FADA, at the heart of HB 1523 is the identification of the following as the official religious beliefs of Mississippi: 1) “marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman”; and 2) “sexual relations are properly reserved to a marriage between one man and one woman.” HB 1523 then allows government officials, businesses, and private citizens to do a whole lot of otherwise illegal and offensive stuff so long as it is “consistent with” one of these beliefs.

Among other things, HB 1523 permits businesses to refuse to provide “accommodations, facilities, or goods” as long as they relate to the “solemnization, formation, celebration, or recognition” of a marriage. Thus, a restaurant manager in Jackson, Mississippi, who chooses not to “recognize” the marriage of the Rev. Hrostowski would be empowered to refuse to seat her, her wife, and their teenage son together at a table on their wedding anniversary. When I was a kid, my grandmother told me about driving into a small town late at night on her honeymoon with my grandfather in the late 1930s only to find a sign at the check-in counter of the only hotel saying “no Jews allowed.” HB 1523 is the contemporary equivalent of that.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/01/04/the_case_against_mississippi_s_hb_1523_proves_religious_freedom_must_be.html

[guillaumeb]

1. Is it too soon to nominate Ted Cruz for the Dick Cheney integrity award?

Some theocrats never give up.

[rug]

2. Not if you delete three words from the award.