If you think Georgia’s so-called “religious
liberty bill” is straight up tripping,
historically speaking, you are correct!
On Monday, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal announced
his plan to veto House Bill 757, titled the
Free Exercise Protection Act. If passed, it
would allow private individuals, businesses
and non-profit organizations to deny services
to customers on the basis of religious principle.
Or, in the words of the proposed legislation
to “protect against infringement of religious
freedom.” While the LGBTQ community wasn’t
explicitly cited in the bill’s language,
these types of Religious Freedom Acts, or
RIFF-rahs, have historically been used to
restrict services they could otherwise freely
access.
But here’s the twist: while Georgia’s
RFRA is overwhelmingly supported by conservative
Christians, its legal precedent has nothing
to do with Jesus. That’s right: RFRAs all
trace back to the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court
case Employment Division, Department of Human
Resources of Oregon vs. Smith.
Native Americans Alfred Smith and Galen Black
were fired from a private drug rehabilitation
facility after their employer discovered they
had ingested peyote as part of a religious
ceremony in the Native American Church they
attended. Smith and Black were then subsequently
denied unemployment benefits since their firing
was attributed to “misconduct.”
Smith then sued the state for violating his
First Amendment rights to religion and speech.
In 1990, the case arrived at the Supreme Court
for the second time, and SCOTUS ruled in favor
of Oregon’s state government.
Writing the majority court opinion, Justice
Antonin Scalia presented a slippery-slope
argument: if such religious exemptions are
upheld, it “would open the prospect of constitutionality
required exemptions from civil obligation
of almost every conceivable kind.”
Scalia further hypothesized that if the court
sided with the Native American plaintiff,
then it might open the door for folks to skirt
all sort of legalities on the basis of religion,
such as paying their taxes, caring for their
children and getting vaccinated.
Disagreeing with the high Court’s verdict,
the U.S. Congress passed the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act of 1993, barring state and
federal governments from “substantially
burdening a person’s exercise of religion.”
Immediately upon signing the bill, a crew
of U.S. senators hightailed it out of the
Capitol building to a peyote ceremony. JUST
KIDDING….we think.
Georgia isn’t the only state to jump on
the RFRA bandwagon ever since. As of 2015,
twenty U.S. states have passed various RFRAs.
For now, the jury is out on whether the Georgia
GOP will overturn the governor’s veto, upping
that number to 21.
But what do you think? Are these laws necessary
or discriminatory? Get in touch and let us
know. And to learn more about the stories
behind today’s headlines,
visit now.howstuffworks.com every day.
