SB2566 is a gateway bill that if passed will lead to the arbitrary discrimination of anyone deemed in opposition of a person’s self-defined “sincerely held religious beliefs.” How is a “sincerely held religious belief” proved? What defines a “sincerely held religious belief”?
The argument that practicing discrimination is a constitutionally protected free exercise of religion itself redefines what the practice of religion is. The Establishment Clause in the United States Constitution bars government sanction or preference of a religion, yet the legislation of the state of Tennessee has chosen to impose a religion and a religious belief upon its citizens regardless of what a citizen might believe. Churches are already allowed to practice discrimination within their churches by barring gay citizens from their sanctuaries. There is a vast difference in a business with state and local business licenses and a church. No individual Tennessean has been barred from entering their place of worship or prevented from praying in their churches or their homes or even in their businesses. To say that religious freedom is threatened if religious people are not allowed to persecute citizens who may be gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered sets a precedence that will lead to violence against a community sanctioned by elected state officials.
So I ask: where will you draw the line?
Gay couples? Interracial couples? Unmarried moms? Muslims? Adulterers? Anyone who doesn’t believe the same as you?
Stop this bill!