Human Rights Campaign: Louisiana Anti-Gay Bill ‘Worse’ Than Indiana’s

Helen Barnes holds a sign of support for gay marriage outside of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Friday, Jan. 9, 2015, in New Orleans. Opponents and supporters of gay marriage argued their sides before the 5th... Helen Barnes holds a sign of support for gay marriage outside of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Friday, Jan. 9, 2015, in New Orleans. Opponents and supporters of gay marriage argued their sides before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on gay marriage bans in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi . (AP Photo/Stacy Revere) MORE LESS
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The Human Rights Campaign is warning that a recently introduced Marriage and Conscience Act in Louisiana is actually worse than similar religious freedom bills in Indiana and Arkansas that received national criticism.

The Louisiana bill was introduced by state Rep. Mike Johnson (R) and has already received the support of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), who also supported the Arkansas and Indiana bills.

Human Rights Campaign (HRC) legal director Sarah Warbelow warned that the Louisiana bill “flat out gives individuals a right to discriminate.”

“This bill is worse than any RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] in that it explicitly allows discrimination based on an individual’s religious beliefs about marriage,” Warbelow said in a statement. “Nobody gets to go into court for a balancing test, there’s no interpretation by a state judicial system. It flat out gives individuals a right to discriminate, period.”

The Louisiana bill lets businesses refuse to recognize same-sex marriage. Notably, it would also allow a business to not offer benefits to employees who are married to someone of the same sex if the business owner has religious objections.

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  1. This “Marriage and Conscience Act” is nothing but a bag of piyush!!!

  2. If the LGBTQ community is actually named in the bill, I wonder how the (potential) law would stand up to SCOTUS scrutiny when examined under the light of SCOTUS’ own Colorado Amendment 2 decision back in the '90s? In that decision, they explicitly state that laws cannot single out gays for unequal treatment.

  3. Avatar for meri meri says:

    And, for the hard of thinking, when Mississippi does it it will be the worst of all

    I assume they’re just waiting for Alabama to do theirs so that Mississippi can make sure theirs is he worst possible.

  4. Booby loves being the Party of Stupid.

  5. Other than scenery, food and music, I suspect you’d be hard-pressed to find many things that aren’t worse in Louisiana than Indiana.

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