A Florida lawmaker has just introduced a new “religious freedom” bill, and it’s terrifying. The bill, filed by state representative Julio Gonzalez, would allow doctors, caregivers, and businesses the right to deny treatment or services to individuals (ahem, women and LGBT individuals) based on “religious or moral convictions or policies.”
This means that even if a certain health care institution isn’t religiously affiliated, any individual doctor, nurse, pharmacist, etc. could refuse to provide birth control, Plan B or abortion services if they feel it is against their personal beliefs.
Though the bill does not explicitly target LGBT individuals, according to the Herald Tribune the bill is worded broadly enough to allow for discrimination against any customer based on “moral grounds.”
It has been pointed out that this law would mean that business owners could even discriminate based on race.
“The argument that there is to be some sort of defensible discrimination based on race is hollow, void and inapplicable, so I don’t think you can equate the two,” Gonzalez told the Tribune. We’re guessing he’s referring to equating racial equality to gay rights—but last we checked, both of those things fall under this one category called “human rights.”
“There have been various situations where there are increasing possibilities of subsections of society having their religious freedoms encroached on,” Gonzalez said, likely in reference to this year’s nationwide legalization of gay marriage and the recent increase in adoption by gay couples. “Over time it became obvious to me we need to adopt some statutory protections,” he said. There recently have been some highly publicized cases of business owners refusing service for religious reasons, such as a Colorado bakery owner who was sued for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple.
The bill hasn’t been passed, and it has yet to find a sponsor in the Senate. It’s likely to be one of the most talked about bills of the next legislative session, and will face a lot of opposition. But in 2015, it’s kind of sad that we’re even still having these kinds of discussions in the first place.