Indiana Senate Passes SB 101, Lambda Legal Urges House to Vote ‘No’ on Religious Discrimination Bill

(Indianapolis, IN, February 24, 2015) - Today, the Indiana Senate, with a vote of 40-10, passed a bill designed to allow private businesses, individuals and organizations to discriminate against anyone in Indiana on religious grounds. Jennifer Pizer, National Director of Lambda Legal’s Law and Policy Project, issued the following statement condemning the bill’s passage and urging the Indiana House of Representatives to vote ‘no’ Senate Bill 101:

“We are extremely disappointed that Indiana’s Senate voted to allow religious discrimination in many areas of life for Indiana’s families, workers and others. We have seen this over and over - bills that say they are about protecting one thing when the real goal is to target and discriminate against LGBT people, with vast implications for everyone else. As written, this bill will upend the balance between religious freedom and freedom from imposition of others’ religious beliefs. Lambda Legal urges the Indiana House to halt this bill before causes damage and legal havoc between neighbors, employee and employer, and landlord and tenant. SB 101 extends religious exercise rights to for-profit companies of all sizes - no matter what goods they make or services they sell, they're treated much like churches. Freedom of religion is already protected by federal and state law, but this bill goes too far.”

As the fight moves to the Indiana House, Lambda Legal is expanding its efforts to defeat this mean-spirited legislation by, once again, participating in Freedom Indiana, the recently relaunched coalition to defeat the ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act’, a bill designed to discriminate.