This post is late to the game, as the media controversy over Indiana’s recent Religious Freedom Restoration Act seems to have boiled over and then simmered back down, taking a back seat to the next outrage. During the first stages of any scandal in the modern age, critical thinking or calm discussion are scarce—a good reason to write later.
Rather than taking sides, I urge people to read and learn for themselves instead of taking for granted the words of others. (If you want to cut the point of this post and skip my ramblings, go to the last paragraph and click on the links to the laws themselves.)
The issue of balancing freedoms between differing religions and social groups is a social and jurisprudential problem of some complexity. Others are more suited to that discussion, and a single blog post, article, or 10-minute news debate is not able address the nuances and difficulties of it.
I was struck by many of the short comments on social media, news sites, and TV reports—from all sides of the “debate,”—which seemed to indicate they had not read the law. To take to social media or other outlets and make pronouncements without having read the law does nothing but gin up emotions, which is not the grounds for an intellectually honest debate. We should not react before researching, decide without deliberation, and condemn without context.
The timeline of the “controversy” as played out in media demonstrates a lack of research before reporting.
- Indiana had a law that would allow discrimination against gays
- There is a federal law signed by President Clinton and championed by Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
- The Indian law was different from the Federal
- Twenty-eight other states have the same law or court ruling
- The differences between the Indiana law are the Federal law are minor
- The differences between the Indiana law and the Federal law are major
- The law does not allow discrimination, it only allows a defense to be raised
- Indiana has other laws which allow a religious exemption
These pronouncements were made by our leaders and our major media talking heads on both sides of the debate, including legal scholars who disagreed with one another. But many had not even read the law for themselves. It is as if we had returned to the age when the Bible was only found in Latin, Hebrew, or Greek, and the leaders of the church had to tell the commoners “what it meant.” Leaders often have a stake in keeping things like that because, once you teach the people themselves to read Latin (or, better yet, translate it into common tongues), things can get messy for the leaders. The argument can be made that if you are not trained as a medical doctor, doing surgery is unwise. But we aren’t talking about “doing surgery”—we are talking about having a reasoned debate.
Of course, there is no guarantee that once you read the “primary texts” for yourself you will understand how it can or cannot be used in the legal process. And people will still disagree—even legal scholars. But at least we can disagree over the text and our interpretation, rather than parroting others who often have an agenda beyond sound intellectual debate.
If you are still interested in this issue, then start here: this is the Federal statute. This is the Indiana statute. And this is the amendment to the Indiana statute after all the outcry. (I am surprised at the number of articles written by attorneys and law scholars that do not include links to the original text.) Maybe the statutes will make sense to you. Maybe they won’t. But you will know more than many politicians and journalists. Perhaps we can model, for our “leaders,” how to have a civil debate about difficult issues without condemnation and name-calling.