Gay rights advocates are hoping to parlay the momentum from their big legislative victories in Indiana and Arkansas this week into further expanding legal protections for gays and lesbians in states around the US.
Hundreds of people calling for Indiana to add protections for gays and lesbians to state civil rights laws marched through downtown Indianapolis on Saturday, drawing the attention of fans attending college basketball’s Final Four basketball tournament, a major event in US sports. They chanted “No more Band-Aids masking hate,” before they walked several blocks to Lucas Oil Stadium, site of the US National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s basketball championship semi-final and final games.
Facing widespread pressure, including from big businesses such as Apple and Wal-Mart, US Republican lawmakers in Indiana and Arkansas rolled back their states’ new religious objections laws, which critics said could be used to discriminate against gays. Amid the uproar, the Republican governors of Michigan and North Dakota urged their own legislatures to extend anti-discrimination protections to gays.
A wave of religious objections laws have been proposed in states across the US as same-sex marriage rapidly advanced, prompting a backlash from conservatives.
Court rulings and state legislatures have legalized same-sex marriage in 37 states and the US Supreme Court is expected to finally issue a decision on the legality of gay marriage this year.
The gay rights movement is also pressing for protections for gays and lesbians in states’ non-discrimination laws. Twenty-nine states do not include protections for gays, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. However, the Indiana and Arkansas laws are fueling efforts to change that as next year’s elections approach.
Similar debates are going on elsewhere. In North Dakota on Thursday, the Republican-controlled legislature voted down a measure that would have prohibited discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation in the areas of housing and employment. North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple rebuked lawmakers, saying such discrimination was not acceptable.
In Michigan, Republican Governor Rick Snyder warned legislators that he would veto a religious objections bill unless they also sent him a measure that would extend anti-discrimination protections to gays. He cited the Indiana outcry in making his warning.
Most of the states without sexual orientation protections are in the south or the central plains, which tend to be more conservative. As public opinion has become more supportive of same-sex marriage and other gay rights in recent years, many businesses say such protections factor into their decisions about expansions and help them attract top employees.
Indiana’s Republican-controlled legislature took a first step by adding language to its new religious objections law stating that service providers cannot use the law as a legal defense for refusing to provide goods, services, facilities or accommodations based on sexual orientation, gender identity and other factors.
It is now the first Indiana state law that explicitly mentions sexual orientation and gender identity.
The governors of New York and Connecticut, who had imposed bans on state officials traveling to Indiana as a symbol of their opposition to the religious objections law, lifted those bans on Saturday in response to the changes in the law.
Arkansas’ amended law only addresses actions by the government, not by businesses or individuals. The law’s supporters say the changes would prevent businesses from using it to deny services to individuals, even though it does not include specific anti-discrimination language similar to Indiana’s law.
However, gay rights proponents want Arkansas to go further and are trying to build support for adding sexual orientation to the protected statuses covered by the state’s civil rights laws. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge last week approved the wording of a proposed ballot measure that would add such protections, clearing the way for supporters to begin gathering the signatures needed to get it on the November next year ballot.
Meanwhile, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, has left open the possibility of issuing an executive order that would prohibit workplace discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people at state agencies.
Arkansas Representative Warwick Sabin, a Democrat, said that the issue is not going away.
“Other states are moving ahead of us and Arkansas is being left in the dust,” he said. “We need to make an affirmative statement about our values as a state, and I know that the vast majority of Arkansans believe in fairness and opportunity for all of its citizens.”
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