True, under old SOGIs which don’t take religious liberty interests into account, people of faith face consequences for sticking to their deeply-held convictions. FFA laws, however, actually expand the amount of liberty available for all in order to ensure that all people may live in ways consistent with their values. As we show elsewhere, this new generation of laws preserves those religious liberties so essential to our founding as historically protected in our country—and does so much more robustly than, for example, those states that have resisted an honest attempt at collaborative lawmaking. Citizens living in Alabama, Missouri, and Pennsylvania have far less protection for their religious liberty because the first generation of SOGIs, passed in those states’ municipalities without thought for the faith community, cover much of their state population. In Utah’s groundbreaking Fairness for All legislation, novel religious liberty protections were added to ensure that religious individuals and  organizations can continue to abide by those beliefs they hold so dear. Freedom of religion, conscience, speech, association, privacy rights, and the ability to participate in the public square without fear from retaliation from the workplace, were all expressly protected by Utah’s 2.0 law, a new generation of common ground lawmaking that does not carry the consequences of older, naked, and unadorned SOGIs. Unlike Alabama, Ohio, and Wyoming, Utah’s law shields religious actors covered by the law from lawsuits and government penalties.

Opponents’ claim

the reality

True, one-sided laws, like the old SOGIs, did not take religious liberty interests into account—meaning people of faith could lawfully be punished for following their deeply held convictions when a live-and-let-live approach would have been possible.

But those states that consciously tried to balance the interests of LGBT persons—for instance, to marry—impressed specific protection for faith belief around marriage. They protected against the laws of tax-exemption, the loss of contract, and the loss of grants. Many protected religious adoption and foster care agencies to do work according to their faith. Many protect religious counseling, and reached other issues. But Utah’s 2.0 law went significantly further.  Utah’s legislation ensures all of this and that professionals who are religious never lose their license because of their religious belief about marriage, faith, or sexuality. Additionally, Utah’s law protects religiously affiliated housing, insulates religious actors from lawsuit or government penalty, and guarantees that religious places, organizations, or individuals will not be coerced into facilitating marriages contrary to their religious convictions. For those individuals living in Birmingham, Alabama; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; or Columbus, Ohio, there are no parallel protections for persons of faith. And neither will there be until citizens come together to protect others’ capacity to be who they are.

opponents’ claim

the reality

Many of the SOGI laws that critics describe could not have consciously attempted to avoid such an unfortunate outcome—they were written before same-sex marriage became national law. But FFA’s approach to common ground lawmaking is not about coercion. It is about the ability for everyone to live and act openly according to what is most core to them, whether that is a religious or sexual identity. Utah’s groundbreaking law protected everyone from being penalized for expressing their beliefs about marriage, faith, and sexuality, whether in the workplace (if any discussion about marriage is allowed) or outside it. This is the way forward. Two-way street protections allow all of us to live peacefully and to work consistent with our convictions.

Fairness for All starts with a premise that everyone should be protected from illicit discrimination whether based on the god they worship or the person they love. FFA laws protect against religious discrimination, which is very real, as well as discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. In America, we are loathe to judge the morality of a private person’s sexual relations, just as we are loathe to judge the morality of one’s private choice of what god to worship. In America, we simply don’t intrude. For examples of that from the courts, see Romer v. Evans and In re Ballard. We have long protected religious people from discrimination based on how they worship, precisely because we believe in the freedom to worship profoundly impacts a person—their identity, their integrity, and their relationships. Just as it is discriminatory to treat religious people differently based on religious beliefs, it is discriminatory to treat gay people differently on who they love when that is not relevant to the job.

opponents’ claim

The reality

Quite the opposite. Including religious liberty protections in the same law that protects against LGBT discrimination does not create an inadequate shield for those things that are most core to persons of faith.

Indeed, Fairness for All laws lock down essential protections in a way that prevents the need to litigate. Litigation introduces inordinate cost and risk. Kentucky’s experience defending Kim Davis’s choice to shut down marriage for everyone because there was no protection of her conscience came at a huge cost: $222,000 in legal fees.  Religious accommodations in laws, are in fact, stable. Utah’s groundbreaking law has not been challenged by anyone since it was enacted in 2015. That should be no surprise: under its non-severability provision, if one part of the law is struck, the entire law falls, including LGBT protections, so it’s in everyone’s self-interest to make an agreement and move on.

History shows us that religious protections in civil rights laws stick, even without a non-severability provision, including those in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

opponents’ claim

the reality

Protecting people from discrimination is not bad policy. Unlike old SOGIs which did not take religious interests into account, FFA laws only proceed when everyone is assured their deeply held convictions will be protected in law. For example, Utah’s FFA law carefully protects religious convictions by setting religious entities aside from nondiscrimination laws that could interfere with faith. This set aside, available to all religious persuasions, extends to churches, religious employers, religious schools and universities, nonprofit organizations, social services, charities, housing providers, and even individuals and organizations that contract with religious organizations. No religious organization or individual is privileged over another—these protections are available to all. In doing this, Utah’s FFA law allows religious individuals and groups to proceed authentically as they always have while protecting LGBT persons from undeserved discrimination in housing and the workplace. Making sure all people can live authentically, without facing discrimination, is the common good the Fairness for All Initiative hopes to serve.