2015 State RFRA Bill Tracker Archive
Written by Don Byrd
Kansas House Passes Bill Allowing Discrimination Against Couples on Religious Grounds [UPDATED]
Written by Don ByrdThe Kansas State House yesterday passed a bill that would allow individuals, businesses and even government employees to refuse to provide services to couples if doing so violated their sincere religious beliefs. The Kansas effort is one of many states currently considering such broad religious exemptions.
Kansas House Committee Passes Bill to Allow Discrimination on Religious Grounds
Written by Don ByrdI posted earlier this week about bills winding through state legislatures that create exemptions from nondiscrimination laws for employees that object on religious grounds to serving same-sex couples. In Kansas earlier today, one of those measures came a step closer to becoming law when a House Committee sent the House Bill 2453 to the state House for a vote.
States Considering Religious Conscience Bills
Written by Don ByrdIn recent years, a handful of states have wrestled with the rights of vendors like florists, bakeries, and photographers to refuse business for same-sex weddings on religious grounds. In particular, states with strong nondiscrimination statutes forbidding such refusal have seen religious objectors challenge those laws in court. In New Mexico, for example, the state Supreme Court rejected a photographer’s argument that a nondiscrimination law should not force her to provide business for a same-sex wedding over her religious objections.
Lawsuit over Kansas Curriculum Says Evolution is Too Religious?
Written by Don ByrdIs the science of evolution atheist? Surely not, right? Nothing about the theory of natural selection is incompatible with a belief in a higher power. Some in Kansas apparently believe otherwise, however, and have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s science curriculum for, it claims, promoting a non-theistic religious view.
