Congressman: Religious Freedom Legislation Needed To Protect Marriage

Congressman Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) says “a climate of intolerance and intimidation for citizens who believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman” is being created.

Labrador has introduced a bill to defend the religious freedom of those who believe in a traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

He says he is concerned about the contraception mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and cases where florists and bakers face lawsuits because support for same-sex marriage violates their beliefs. Labrador has introduced H.R. 3133, The Marriage and Religious Freedom Act. Labrador says the purpose of the bill is “to prevent any adverse treatment of any person on the basis of views held with respect to marriage.”

Labrador recently discussed the measure at the Heritage Foundation.

According to Labrador the HHS contraception mandate is an example of “the administration forcing religious and other faith-based organizations to spend money on things like abortion pills that violate their most basic beliefs.” He also says he is concerned about reports that the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting the Tea Party and other conservative groups. Labrador says the federal government needs to be restrained from “discriminating against those who uphold traditional marriage.”

The Christian Post quotes Labrador as saying the bill is “narrowly targeted to prohibit the federal government from inappropriately targeting organizations of individuals who hold a religious belief that marriage is a union of one man and one woman.”

“We should not assume that the IRS will be any friendlier to organizations that support and want to continue practicing traditional marriage,” Labrador warned.

Under the measure the federal government “cannot make tax exempt status contingent on the group’s beliefs about marriage.”

Sarah Torre, is a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society.

“We have a fundamental misunderstanding of religious freedom,” she stated. She accuses the Obama administration is “watering down religious freedom to just freedom of worship” by insisting that faith “is not something that you bring into your workplace.” Torre accuses the Obama administration of trying to pass measures that presume that “faith is something that you keep in your home and place of worship.”

Torre says she is concerned that Millennials need to be more aware of the religious freedom issue. She says the Millennials need to hear stories about people who are doing “the good work of restoring lives, of educating the next generation, and providing health care for Americans. She says public servants need legislation to enable them to do this with “the beliefs that motivated them to do that in the first place.”

Austin Nimocks, the senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom stated many recent legal cases “portray same-sex couples as victims and that just hasn’t been the case in the way all these things have happened. He adds: “in cases where homosexuals sue companies for discrimination, they get the service originally denied them, and they force believers to undertake difficult legal battles.”

Nimocks is quoted by the Christian Post as saying “many of the defendants ADF supports have no problem with homosexuals, but choose not to involve themselves in marriage ceremonies because of their religious convictions.

Labrador told the Heritage Foundation that the bill “doesn’t take away anything from anyone,” but instead protects the religious freedom of those who uphold traditional marriage. “This is something that both social conservatives and libertarians can rally around and it can generate support in both parties and actually pass both houses of Congress and become law,” he said.

Labrador says the measure already has 100 cosponsors. He says several Democrats are co-sponsoring the legislation.