Imagine doctors having the choice not to end the lives of unborn babies, or ministers who can opt out of performing marriages that they consider disgraceful or perverted.
Iowa lawmakers are weighing a bill to cement these rights, but activists from the LGBTQ “community” oppose it.
The bill would give religious freedom for anyone with a job that requires a state license, reports KCRG in Cedar Rapids. A minister at a courthouse could refuse to mock his own faith by marrying a same-sex couple, or a doctor could refuse on moral grounds to perform an abortion.
The bill’s sponsor, Senator Dennis Guth, R-Hancock County, calls it a First Amendment issue.
“How is it that we’re going to think about taking away their constitutional rights to free speech?” he said. “This is really amounting to government control of your thoughts.”
Critics of the bill say it could allow discrimination. The LGBTQ advocacy group One Iowa says the bill would be a step backward.
“What this really allows people to do is pick and choose what laws they’re going to follow based on their religious views, and that is not religious freedom, that’s religious discrimination,” said One Iowa’s Kennan Crowe.
Lawmakers referred the bill to the judiciary committee. The committee’s chair says he is looking forward to stopping it.
