Joe.My.God. LGBT News
Florida state GOP Rep. Julio Gonzales has introduced a broad “religious freedom” bill that would allow adoption agencies, hospitals, and small businesses to turn away LGBT people because Jesus. Florida Politics reports:
Rep. Julio Gonzalez filed his first bill of the 2016 legislative year on Wednesday, and it was a doozy: a proposal to give immunity to certain businesses that don’t want to render certain services on grounds of “religious freedom,” including private child-placement agencies. Specifically, the bill amends the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1998” to read that an entity owned by a religious institution is “not required to produce, create, or deliver a product or service that would be contrary to the religious or moral convictions or policies” of the entity, with child-placing agencies specifically enumerated. A similar bill caused an uproar in the House when Rep. Jason Brodeur faced a fierce floor debate during the 2015 Legislative Session.
More from the Herald Tribune:
Gonzalez’s bill goes beyond the adoption issue to include other businesses. It states that individuals, businesses with five or fewer owners, religious institutions and businesses operated by religious institutions are “not required to produce, create, or deliver a product or service” to a customer if they have a religious or moral objection. While Gonzalez could find no instances in Florida of businesses being challenged in court for not offering products or services to same sex couples, he pointed to highly-publicized examples elsewhere. In one widely-publicized case a Colorado baker who was sued for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same sex couple. “We have seen in other states the bakers, the photographers who don’t want to participate in certain religious events,” Gonzalez said.
Freedom For All reacts:
HB 401 uses a thinly veiled guise of religion to justify denying services to people in need at hospitals, adoption agencies, and other important institutions that Floridians use every day. It’s cruel to deny any child the opportunity to be welcomed into a loving, supporting family, just because they or a parent might be gay or transgender. It’s wrong to refuse potentially life-saving medical care to a person who has been in an accident simply because they are LGBT. This bill goes too far and would make Florida a worse place for everyone.