Pizer said the New York case represents an area of law that is unsettled, specifically as it relates to people who work in artistic fields like photography. The free speech argument could also represent a potential challenge to the Equality Act, proposed federal legislation that would protect LGBTQ people in many areas. The measure passed the House in February but has not yet been voted on in the Senate.
But Randall said he refuses to file taxes for same-sex couples because it would require him to express recognition of their marriage. Randall also sells insurance, and he said he has both sold insurance to and filed taxes for single gay people.
But if a same-sex couple asked him to sell them insurance, he would only do it if he could put them down as single, he said. If they are not willing to accept it, there's plenty of other places to go for insurance.
And rather than strike any kind of careful balance between assertions of religious liberty and LGBT equality or other rights and values that could be at stake, many grant a nearly unfettered license to discriminate while brushing aside the rights and freedoms of others.
On both fronts, most of these laws bear no resemblance to religious exemptions that are motivated by a concern for human rights and are narrowly drawn to respect the rights of all involved. The religious exemptions that have been considered or enacted by state legislatures take different forms.
Some are comprehensive, providing blanket protection for entities that do not wish to provide various services to LGBT people because of their religious or moral beliefs. Others are more narrowly circumscribed, focusing particularly on adoption and foster care services and physical and mental healthcare services. Few of the states that have enacted these laws have protections in place that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In this context, these laws function first and foremost as a license to discriminate, signaling that discrimination against LGBT people is acceptable in the state. The framing and scope of these exemption laws differ in many respects, but are alike in several fundamental ways.
First, they are motivated to a large degree by hostility to recent advances in LGBT equality; on their face they invoke only a concern for religious liberty but the public debate around and legislative history of many of these laws show quite clearly the animus and the discriminatory intent that underpin them.
Second, they permit blatantly discriminatory practices without clear limitations or meaningful safeguards. They do not strike a careful balance—or even suggest that any serious attempt was made to do so—between religious exercise and the purposes of the underlying law from which the exemption is carved out, a feature of rights-respecting approaches to religious exemptions.
Third, they often show no regard whatsoever for the harms that the discrimination they legitimize might inflict on those who are turned away from a range of important services and for the nondiscrimination principle itself. These laws are directly harmful, and they take on added importance because of the larger message they send. By enacting these laws, states send a clear signal that discrimination against LGBT people is permissible—and that message has serious consequences at a time when discrimination against LGBT people remains all too common in the United States.
Proponents of exemptions that allow for anti-LGBT discrimination have framed them in terms of religious liberty, foregrounding how these laws might exempt businesses and service providers from laws and regulations that they find objectionable. The assumption seems to be that the resulting harms to LGBT individuals, or to the core value of equality, are insubstantial.
As detailed below, however, the exemptions come at a high price. To understand the harm, it is important to look at the larger context in which such laws are being considered, including pre-existing anti-LGBT discrimination and how exemption laws can encourage such discrimination, particularly in states without nondiscrimination protections.
Anti-LGBT religious exemption laws are likely to exacerbate mistreatment because, both on their face and in the political discourse that surrounds them, they tend to legitimize and signal official acceptance of discrimination against LGBT people.
Already, LGBT people often face discrimination by service providers who deny them goods and services. Where discrimination against LGBT people is permitted, because nondiscrimination laws do not exist, these problems tend to be worse. The following pages describe the tangible, human impact of such discrimination—which will likely worsen as a result of religious exemption laws—on the people who bear the brunt of it. Leiana C. After the incident, Leiana and her wife gave up on the process for more than a year, fearing similar treatment from other providers.
It was not until a lesbian friend recommended a doctor whose services she had used that they decided to try again. The couple are now the parents of a three-year-old, and Leiana is pregnant with their second child. Tanya P. At the time, her daughter was already obtaining that treatment, had socially transitioned, and was seeing a therapist. Nonetheless, her pediatrician refused to provide a letter stating that information, citing his religious beliefs:.
One pediatrician in Alabama recounted various difficulties that patients had encountered with providers who refuse care on religious grounds. LGBT individuals have also experienced religious refusals in child welfare services. The suit was filed after two sets of prospective parents—Kristy and Dana Dumont and Erin and Rebecca Busk-Sutton—contacted religiously affiliated agencies in the state about adopting children from foster care and were informed the agencies did not work with same-sex couples.
While many religious exemptions focus on healthcare or child welfare services, religious objections have motivated discriminatory refusals in a wide range of contexts. In a lawsuit filed in , for example, Jack Zawadski sued a Mississippi funeral home for breach of contract and emotional distress, alleging that the home had agreed to transport and cremate the body of his late husband, Robert Huskey, only to renege on the verbal contract when it found out they were a same-sex couple.
When LGBT people are refused service, this discrimination has material and psychological consequences. Some individuals will obtain the good or service they sought, but will face additional costs: finding an alternative provider can require time, energy, and money, which can prove discouraging or even prohibitive. In an interview with Human Rights Watch, one same-sex couple noted that they had been turned away from three different foster care agencies because of their sexual orientation.
In , the couple had applied to an agency in Texas, which responded in an email that they would not work with them and that the couple was not a good fit for the agency. In , the couple applied to another agency in Texas, which approved their paperwork and scheduled a home visit. Upon meeting the couple in person and realizing that they were a same-sex couple, the caseworker terminated the home visit after five minutes and notified them the agency did not work with same-sex couples.
In the hopes of starting a family elsewhere, one of the men accepted a job in Tennessee. Upon arriving in the state, they applied to a third agency that would work with them but would not place boys in their care, saying that the couple could not provide a sufficiently masculine influence.
In their fourth attempt, the couple found an agency that worked with same-sex couples, and is in the process of adopting two siblings who have thrived under their care as foster children. Refusals create barriers to accessing mental and physical healthcare as well.
Persephone Webb, an activist in Tennessee, noted:. The lack of access can be particularly acute in rural areas. In rural East Tennessee, one transgender woman described trying for years to find access to therapy and hormones, eventually ordering hormones online rather than obtaining them from a medical provider.
When she was ultimately able to obtain access to care, it was by traveling to a clinic in Asheville, NC, more than an hour away from her home. Rhonda L. Other individuals simply will not obtain the service at all, forgoing whatever they needed because of the rejection.
One lesbian woman in Mississippi recalled that, after their first son was born, she and her partner returned to the OB-GYN they had worked with to discuss having a second child. Often, these raise free speech issues. The famous case of the Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple will head to the US supreme court next month.
Conservatives are convinced such cases will become more common once same-sex marriage is legalised. But she agrees such cases will continue whether or not same-sex marriage becomes law. The world is changing, the balance between rights will keep shifting as they have always done.
People deliberately went in and demanded to be served on equal terms — we now see that as admirable, even if at the time many saw it as provocative. Marriage equality's next fight: is freedom to discriminate a right worth protecting? Gay Alcorn navigates the new fault line Support our independent journalism by giving a one-off or monthly contribution. James Paterson and Dean Smith have offered bills with different proposals for protecting the rights of marriage equality opponents.
Hanging on for dear life, hardliners change tack on same-sex marriage David Marr. Read more. Rival same-sex marriage bill to trigger Coalition showdown. Almost half of Australians back right to refuse same-sex weddings — poll. Turnbull says Dean Smith's marriage equality bill a good starting point. The Marriage Same Sex Couples Act provides the means for organised religions — other than the Church of England — to opt in to conduct same-sex marriages, with the decision left to individual institutions.
Only places of worship are registered to perform same-sex marriage in England and Wales, meaning approximately Just 23 same-sex couples had a religious marriage ceremony in , compared with over 68, opposite-sex couples. If you are a same-sex couple in England and Wales then you most likely live in a town where there is no opportunity to have a religious marriage ceremony.
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