The Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was recently signed into effect in Indiana caused some to believe that the law was using religion as a form of shield to lash out at the LGBT community and not look like a bigot.
This caused discussion and debate over the freedom of business in a free market against the obligation to serve to a public community in a public market.
Business officials like Tim Cook of Apple came out to claim that the law was damaging to the community.
However, the corrected and revised law states that the government cannot inhibit religious freedom and those that feel that their religion has been hurt by the government could file a claim and lawsuit.
Nowhere in the bill does it mention anything pertaining to the LGBT community.
Looking at the law in this way, the RFRA has some sense to it and has protection that the people need. The nation should accept this new law as long as it stays close to the guidelines it has already stated in the bill and not change dramatically.
Because if this bill’s guidelines change, it could easily go down a path that will harm fellow citizens based on what they believe is their God or what sexual orientation they are interested in.
The ‘fixes’ that have been made to the law do not fully provide a potent solution. The call to action would be to get more specific and be transparent with the law.
The way the bill is set up still leaves a lot of unanswered and in the end, people in the LGBT community might and will face some sort of subtle discrimination under this bill.
At the federal level, there are laws that protect people based on their beliefs and religions.
However, there are no federal laws or Indiana laws for that matter, which offer protection to those that have different sexual orientations.
And that is where misinterpretation of the laws like the RFRA can be upheaved and used against the LGBT community for a specific agenda.
The media and those involved in said issue are pouring too much into the possibility of discriminative actions against the LGBT community, but are not looking at the law as a whole.
Another example of an issue that could arise due to the vagueness of the law is that a pharmacy will not give service to someone based on their religious beliefs.
The real enemy is the way the law is worded.
For starters, the bill’s language is very misleading and in some instances the wording contradicts itself.
That leaves the law open to interpretation and those with intentions to hurt a certain community could truly cause some harm toward it.
The public has blown up this aspect of the issue so much that it seems as if that is the law’s sole purpose, to serve as a hate crime for communities such as the LGBT community.
The law is okay, average and decent. Looking at the gist of it all, the law means to do right, similar to the law signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
Fixing the law the first time still leaves the bill open to different interpretations.
Indiana had a problem by not having a state law on the books that would protect religion. When it went in to try to fix that issue by including it in the RFRA, the problems weren’t fully addressed.
Civil rights should be something every American should have and laws that are designed to be for the greater good of the nation should be clear and transparent.