Following in the footsteps of legislators in Arkansas and Indiana, the sponsor of Louisiana's version of the federal religious freedom bill agreed to omit some controversial language in his measure to avoid confusion about its intent.
On Tuesday, state Rep. Mike Johnson announced that he would make the change to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) measure that he filed last Friday.
"Rather than try to modify the wording, I've decided it will be best to simply eliminate that paragraph entirely to avoid any further confusion. This bill is a good faith effort to protect the right of conscience for ALL Louisiana citizens, and we want to ensure its language accurately reflects that," he wrote in a
press release.
The affected portion of the measure refers to federal qualifications for employee benefit plans, and Johnson determined it was causing more confusion than clarity, reports
KSLA News.
The initial bill stipulated that it will not "require any official or court in this state to construe the constitution or state law to confer the legal incidents of marriage to any member of a union other than one man and one woman," nor would it be seen as recognizing "any marriage contracted in another jurisdiction which is not of one man and one woman."
Legal experts agreed that the deleted passage could have permitted private companies to deny benefits to gay married couples on the basis of a religious or moral objection.
Gay rights advocates contend the Louisiana bill is more discriminatory than similar bills being debated in Arkansas and Indiana.
"This bill is worse than any RFRA in that it explicitly allows discrimination based on an individual's religious beliefs about marriage. Nobody gets to go into court for a balancing test, there's no interpretation by a state judicial system. It flat-out gives individuals a right to discriminate, period," Human Rights Campaign legal director Sarah Warbelow told
The Washington Post.
Just as the Indiana legislation had implications for Gov. Mike Pence's potential presidential aspirations, the Bayou State bill placed another GOP hopeful in the spotlight.
Appearing on NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday before the bill was changed, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he opposes discrimination against anyone in housing and employment, and he told moderator Chuck Todd that the religious freedom bills address specific instances.
"We're not talking about day-to-day routine commercial transactions. We're talking about a very specific example here of business owners, of florists, of musicians, of caterers who are being forced to either pay thousands of dollars or close their businesses if they don't want to participate in a wedding ceremony that contradicts their religious beliefs," said Jindal.
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Jindal endorses the changes to Johnson's bill, his spokeswoman, Shannon Bates Dirmann, told the
New Orleans Times-Picayune on Tuesday.
Jindal, who backed a religious protection law passed in the state in 2010, criticized Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence for backing down in the face of controversy.
"I don't know about you, but sometimes it feels like evangelical Christians are the only group that it's OK to discriminate against today in this society," Jindal said to a gathering of evangelicals at a Good Friday breakfast, reports
The Des Moines Register.
Jindal is almost dead last among likely Republican candidates in a
Real Clear Politics aggregate of national polls, with 1.5 percent support.
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