Indianapolis
Photograph ©2014 by Brian Cohen.

Suspend Travel to Indiana Because of Religious Freedom Restoration Act?

annel Malloy — who is the current governor of the state of Connecticut — said he will be signing an executive order to ban state-sponsored travel to Indiana after lawmakers in that state passed controversial legislation which has unleashed furor around the United States, according to this article posted at WVIT Channel 30 News in Hartford.

The legislation in question is known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — modeled after a similar federal law signed by Bill Clinton when he was president of the United States in 1993 — and 19 other states already have laws similar to the one passed in Indiana.

Mike Pence — who is the current governor of the state of Indiana — is standing firm on the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act; although he has acquiesced to revisiting the wording of the legislation which was passed and which he approved, as the law is meant to protect free exercise of religion. Pence is currently in talks with legislators, which could result in a clarification of the legislation — also known as Senate Bill 101 — later this week.

The supposed intention of the law in Indiana is that it would prevent the government from compelling people to do anything to which they would object to on religious grounds — such as providing services or selling products to people who are know to be gay or lesbian…

…which is the main impetus for the backlash: that the rights of gay and lesbian individuals would be violated by such a law be being refused service by businesses which they are attempting to patronize; thereby prompting the ban on travel sponsored by the state of Connecticut to Indiana:

I am not a political person, so I am not offering an opinion pertaining to the controversial law in Indiana — nor do I think that is relevant to the question I am asking you after reading what Dannel Malloy posted via Twitter: do you plan on suspending travel to Indiana; or is all of this wrangling much ado about nothing?

The photograph displayed at the top of this article is of South Illinois Street in downtown Indianapolis, facing south. Photograph ©2014 by Brian Cohen.

[yop_poll id=”6″]

  1. I am no expert but I believe the federal one in 1993 was to protect pro-life doctors from forcing them to do abortions due to their religious background.
    You failed to mention CT also has its own version of the RFRA act, very similar to the federal one too. The main difference, however, between IN & CT, is that sexual orientation is a protected class in CT’s anti-discrimination laws whereas there is no mention of sexual orientation at all in Indiana’s.
    If there is a bright side in this issue I hope Indiana will add sexual orientation as a protected class in its laws.

  2. Unfortunately my GF lives in Indiana, so I cannot not go… She is moving out of there end of this school year tough so after that, yes!

  3. If someone is a fag it doesn’t mean everyone has to support them! At this time fags have more freedom then normal people!

  4. I didn’t want to go to Indiana before they passed the law. I can’t even point it on the map. Indiana is a totally irrelevant state. They can keep their religious nonsense.

  5. The survey doesn’t capture another group: those who would travel to Indiana more because the legislature protected religious liberty with passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. If I’m a Christian wedding photographer who believes what the Scriptures teach about homosexuality, I shouldn’t have to be compelled by the government to photograph the “wedding” of two males. I’m sure that there is an ample supply of pro-homosexual service providers who will gladly take on the work. I also believe the converse is true: if a photographer wants to photograph the marriages of same sex couples, that is fine with me — it’s her business. I’ll take my business elsewhere.

  6. I’ll try to keep this short. My issue is that the wording of the bill protects “people” from doing things that conflicts with their religious beliefs, and does not allow the government to force them to do it. I’m totally cool with that as long as it’s people we are protecting with actual religious convictions being violated. But it seems we are discussing or interpreting this as a law that allows businesses to claim religious convictions and that is downright silly. Businesses can’t have a religion (unless we are discussing the business of religion but that’s another topic). Businesses, especially those who are LLC, S Corp or C corp are not people but have been granted personhood*. They have executed the “vail of corporate separation” in order to protect the owners of the business in the event something goes awry. A sole proprietor is different. I am a sole proprietor d/b/a my legal name and therefore have no corporate veil to pierce. My religion (or lack of one) can’t be separated from me as I am the business and the business is me (according to tax law and the IRS).

    To answer the poll question I will travel as needed to Indiana as it’s not the fault of the fine citizens of Indiana that the governor and legislature can’t write a law and not be ambiguous. It needs to be fixed. \

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