The Patriot Post® · Indiana Groans and the Template of Doom
If anyone looks like a fool this April 1st, it’s corporate America. They’re not only drawing a line in the sand on religious liberty – they’re standing on the wrong side of it with the intolerant Left! After weeks of spewing misinformation, liberals have managed to whip the entire country into a pointless frenzy over a perfectly reasonable religious liberty bill that is almost identical to one heralded by Bill Clinton.
Their propaganda machine has been particularly effective on corporate CEOs, who have spent the last several days firing off indignant press releases about pulling their business from the state – but not before engaging in some epic hypocrisy of their own. Turns out, the companies most outraged by Indiana’s law are the ones contributing to real and sometimes deadly discrimination!
CEO Marc Benioff of SalesForce is arguing that “protecting religious liberty makes travel to Indiana unsafe for customers or employees.” Well, try traveling to China or Iran and see how safe not protecting religious liberty makes you! Mollie Hemingway blew the lid off of Benioff’s double standard in a great piece slamming the company’s international policies. “It’s worth looking at who Benioff happily does business with,” she writes. “The company has a branch based out of Beijing in the People’s Republic of China, a Communist-controlled country that is a human rights nightmare.” Before Benioff gets on his moral high horse, he might want to stop operating in countries where “long jail terms, forced renunciations of faith, and torture in detention… and organ harvesting” are routine. But then again, maybe that’s why Benioff is opposed to Indiana’s freedom law in the first place.
Then, of course, there’s Apple, which takes exception to Indiana’s law for offending homosexuals – but is somehow perfectly okay doing business with nations that stone them. RedState took CEO Tim Cook to task over the company’s selective outrage with a surprising look at the countries “where Apple has a presence – (including not-so-progressive African and Arab regions). See any nations that engage in discrimination? When was the last time Cook objected to a single act of discrimination in any of these countries? Never. He hasn’t. He doesn’t.”
So how is it that these businesses can justify boycotting Indiana, when they consistently turn a blind eye to international partners that deal in child slavery, forced abortions, real sexual persecution, or human trafficking? And if Apple, SalesForce, Angie’s List, and dozens of others are protesting laws that simply protect religious liberty, then they should be warned that they’re taking an incredible risk in doing so. As Hiram Sasser points out in [Wednesday’s] Wall Street Journal, their opposition could be used as evidence that these employers are creating a “hostile work environment for people who support religious freedom protections” if their companies are ever sued.
Contrary to what the media would have you believe, RFRA is not about denying people a seat in a restaurant or a room at a hotel. True, Christians would never refuse people these services – but being forced to participate in a religious ceremony or an abortion procedure that violates religious beliefs is completely un-American and uncivil. “If Apple, and specifically Tim Cook, are serious about using this soapbox to stand up for homosexual rights,” Neil Stevens points out, “then it’s time to get as active about the People’s Republic of China as they are about Indiana. Speak out just as loudly, and if any economic threats are made, they must be applied equally to both.”
And yet, lost in all of this back-and-forth is the reality that this isn’t about standing up for homosexual rights – it’s about standing up for everyone’s rights. In a civil society, the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. But that’s exactly the problem. America, under this administration, is less and less civil – particularly to men and women of faith. There’s no room for polite debate or even coexistence. Instead, the LGBT movement that once said they didn’t want the government to tell them how to live, now wants the same government to tell us what to believe and punish those who fail to comply. Where’s the tolerance in that?
Read It – or Weep!
At just three pages, the Indiana RFRA doesn’t take much effort to read. But it’s an effort, unfortunately, that too few people bothered to make. Instead, they’ve let the media control the narrative with wild distortions about what the law actually does. The federal version was so non-controversial that Al Gore said, “The fact is, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is something that all Americans can support.”
Two decades later, we shouldn’t be surprised that homosexual activists have seized on a narrow reading of the measure to spark outrage about the bill. But that doesn’t change the truth, which is that the implications of RFRA go well beyond marriage. In fact, in 22 years, these laws have never been used to “discriminate” against gays and lesbians. Believe it or not, the real beneficiaries, as the Washington Times explains, have been Muslims, Indians, and Sikhs.
University of Virginia Law Professor Douglas Laycock tried to dispel some of those myths with the history of the law. “So what kinds of cases are RFRAs really about?” he asked. “They are about churches feeding the homeless; sometimes the city or the neighbors object. They are about Muslim women wearing scarves or veils. They are about Amish buggies. They are about Sabbath observers. They are about church bells… And usually, the government wins. These laws have been under-enforced, not over-enforced.”
Just this week, Geneva College showed the law’s broad impact. Using Pennsylvania’s RFRA, attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom are asking the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals to exempt them from ObamaCare’s pro-abortion mandate. They argue that Americans shouldn’t be forced to violate their religious beliefs and pay for drugs or procedures they morally oppose – a right the Supreme Court already upheld in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. RFRA may not guarantee Geneva College a victory in court, but it does guarantee them the opportunity to be heard. And that’s all anyone is asking for when the government attacks faith. (For other examples of how the law could help, check out the Benham Brothers’, Craig James’s, Kelvin Cochran’s, and Barronelle Stutzman’s stories.)
The Left’s interpretation of RFRA, meanwhile, was meant to scare people – and scare them they have. GOP presidential hopefuls Governors Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal, Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Rick Santorum have been out in full force to defend the bills, including Mike Huckabee. The former governor is as frustrated as we are to see states like Arkansas cave on their proposed language. “Critics of the law have distorted this legislation and created another phony crisis – and sadly many major corporations, organizations, and individuals have collapsed under the weight of the irrational pressure from the far Left,” he told reporters.
One of those corporations, Angie’s List, is feeling the heat from subscribers, as friends of FRC and AFA make it clear that they paid the company to review service providers – not public policy. If Angie’s List doesn’t want to deal with states that protect religious liberty, then we should accommodate them and not do business with them. (Cancel your membership here or call 866-623-6088.)
It’s the same with the out-of-control governors and elected officials who are banning state-funded travel to Indiana. In the end, they’re probably doing Hoosiers a favor. Of course, the irony is, a couple of these governors (Connecticut’s Dannel Malloy for one) are boycotting Indiana because of RFRA, when they have the same law on their own books! Then there’s New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who announced he was banning travel by state employees to intolerant Indiana as he heads to Cuba. How’s that for hypocrisy?
Letter Rip! Congress Sends Two Missives on Modder
For a real-life example of how desperately Christians need religious protections, try Chaplain Wes Modder. The almost 20-year Navy vet served 8,000 combat service members “with distinction” until he was caught – doing his job. After his own temporary assistant, who concealed he was a homosexual and married to another man, reported him to the Equal Opportunity office for counseling troops according to his faith, he was stripped of his duties and ordered to clean out his office. Why? Because he dared to believe the biblical morality that his sponsoring church sent him to the Navy to espouse.
Now, facing the abrupt end to a stellar career, Chaplain Modder’s request for a religious accommodation was denied. The case is such a stunning abuse of the military’s own rules that even Congress has gotten involved. Thirty-five members have written to Secretary Ray Mabus and Chief of Chaplains Rear Admiral Margaret Kibben demanding that Modder be reinstated and his religious freedom be upheld.
“Military chaplains fill a crucial religious need that exists uniquely in the realm of military service – a need that is imperative to the well-being and operational readiness of the troops,” they wrote. “Navy policy also protects a chaplain’s ability to preach and teach consistent with the tenants of his or her endorsing denomination, even when sailors may disagree with the chaplain’s remarks. Chaplains have the right to express their religious beliefs during their conduct of a service of worship or religious study.”
Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), a military chaplain himself, fired off a second letter demanding an investigation into how “Chaplain Modder’s private, confidential communications were obtained, and whether any regulations that protect confidentiality were violated.” It’s an important question in an era of unprecedented hostility. Hopefully, the involvement of the U.S. House will send a message to the military that Congress is concerned about religious liberty in the ranks. And those who attempt to erode it, do so at their peril.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.