Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) on March  26, 2015.
The act allows individuals and companies to assert that their exercise of religion has been, or will be burdened or violated as a legal defense, according to the Indianapolis Star.
The bill has become quite controversial among lesbian gay bisexual transgender community members and supporters as well as other social minority groups. They claim the law targets these groups and allows for discrimination among them using religious freedom as a legal excuse.
“I first heard about the whole ‘boycott Indiana’ campaign on Instagram. I started looking into it, and I realized that other states, including Missouri have laws just like it,” sophomore Sarah Bai said. “I support gay rights, but I think it’s weird how people protest Indiana’s legislation when so many others states have a law that reads the same way. “
In fact, 19 other states, including Missouri, have RFRAs similar to Indiana’s but aren’t receiving the backlash Indiana is.
Missouri’s statute was modeled after the original federal legislation.
The first RFRA was passed in 1993 by Congress and originally applied to federal, state and local governments. However, the Supreme Court ruling of City of Boerne v. Flores held that the law could only apply to the federal government. 21 states passed RFRAs since this announcement.
The one big variant between Missouri’s and Indiana’s law is that Missouri’s has a “civil rights” carve-out. The law has a passage that says that it does not apply to “state or local civil rights law.” This means places that have gay-rights ordinances that prohibit discrimination in employment, housing and businesses open to the public are untouched by the state’s RFRA. People take issue with this because not all cities have the necessary ordinances  to protect LGBT citizens from discrimination.
According to the Human Rights campaign, only 13 cities in Missouri have gay-rights ordinances.
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest national LGBT civil rights organization, disclosed that only the Indianan cities of Evansville, Indianapolis, Bloomington and South Bend have the necessary ordinances that prohibit discrimination against LGBT people.
“It’s ridiculous. I never realized that it was actually legal in some areas of Missouri to not only discriminate against people based on sexual orientation, but that it’s protected by ‘religious freedom,’” sophomore Lydia Thompson said. “I seriously didn’t even know that was a thing, like I can’t fathom how that’s allowed.”
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest national LGBT civil rights organization, disclosed that only the cities of Evansville, Indianapolis, Bloomington and South Bend have the necessary ordinances that prohibit discrimination against LGBT people. Based off the populations given by the 2013 census, calculation present that these cities represent 17 percent of the state.
“I think the law was silly. Religious freedom does not constitute rejecting other people from a business where you would serve others just because they’re gay or their lifestyle is against your beliefs,” sophomore Alyssa Carinder said. “ It’s not something  you can pick and choose for your business, I mean I’m Christian and like the Bible literally says you’re not supposed to discriminate against others or hate people. So I’m not really sure where people even get this stuff from.”
Under pressure from shifting public views in Indiana, Gov. Pence and the Indiana General Assembly revised the wording of the law to include that businesses may not refuse service to anyone based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The new law reads, “This chapter does not: (1) authorize a provider to refuse to offer or provide services… to any member… of the general public on the basis of …sexual orientation, gender identity….”
By Kat Sarafianos