It Is Never Easy…

Especially in the south to pass non-discrimination laws for gender identity and sexual orientation, but in Baton Rouge Louisiana they are trying.

“Fairness Ordinance” supporters hope extra time fosters support
The Advocate
By Rebekah Allen
July 24, 2014

Community leaders in support of the so-called “Fairness Ordinance” spent weeks preparing for Wednesday night’s Metro Council meeting, coordinating phone calls and emails to build support for a proposed law to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians only to watch council members kick the vote to a meeting in three weeks.

It’s an extra three weeks of public debate they need, as despite their aggressive campaign, it was widely believed that they lacked sufficient votes on the Council to pass the law. In fact, Councilman John Delgado — one of only two council members to publicly affirm before the meeting that they would vote in favor of the ordinance — filibustered the final minutes of the meeting partially because he was expecting a defeat.

As usual the opposition comes from the Christian right,

Opponents included not only Louisiana Family Forum President Gene Mills — a fixture at public meetings about social issues — but a number of pastors and local business and property owners. They complained that the law would not only violate their religious freedom, but potentially open up business owners to litigation.

Ah yes, their famous “religious freedom” that since the beginning of this country never was. Nowhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights or has any court recognized the right to discriminate. Not even in the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby case did they recognize the right to discriminate, and they even stated in majority decision that their decision doesn’t cover discrimination cases.

The principal dissent raises the possibility that discrimination in hiring, for example on the basis of race, might be cloaked as religious practice to escape legal sanction. See post, at 32–33. Our decision today provides no such shield. The Government has a compelling interest in providing an equal opportunity to participate in the work-force without regard to race, and prohibitions on racial discrimination are precisely tailored to achieve that critical goal.

So when you hear businesses or individuals say that their religious freedom is being violated that is just wishful thinking on their part, no court in the land has given them the right to discriminate.