www.clevelandbanner.com
Cleveland Daily Banner—Sunday, January 3, 2016—11
States plan renewed debate on LGBT rights, religious freedom
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) —
With same-sex marriage now
legal nationwide, lawmakers in
numerous states are preparing
for a new round of battles in
2016 over whether to grant discrimination protections to LGBT
people or religious exemptions to
nonprofits and businesses that
object to gay marriage.
The tussle over civil rights and
religious freedoms is one of several hot-button issues that could
drive states in opposite policy
directions, as lawmakers seek to
appeal to voters during a year in
which more than 5,800 state legislative seats will be up for election.
Republicans hold majorities in
two-thirds of the states’ legislative chambers, meaning they get
to set the agenda. Those priorities could include attempts to
exempt businesses from providing wedding-related services to
gay couples, expand gun rights
and further restrictions on abortions.
Democrats, meanwhile, will
likely be pushing in the opposite
direction.
“What we’ve got is division,”
said William Pound, executive
director of the National
Conference of State Legislatures.
He predicts there will be a
“significant number of bills”
seeking to advance either religious rights or the civil rights of
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
“You’ve got the Democratic
states reacting very differently, a
lot of the time, than the
Republican states to these
issues,” Pound said.
Those potentially divisive
debates will be playing out as
legislators also struggle with
some traditionally difficult financial issues, such as budget
shortfalls and calls to boost
funding for public schools and
infrastructure. Education issues
are expected to be at the forefront in more than a third of the
states, according to an analysis
by Associated Press statehouse
reporters around the country.
At least 10 states might consider new revenue for transportation in 2016, building on a
trend in which at least half the
states already have acted in the
past several years.
States that rely heavily on the
energy industry for tax income,
such as Alaska, Oklahoma, West
Virginia and Wyoming, are taking big budget hits due to falling
oil, natural gas and coal revenue. But tax cuts could be on
the agenda in more than a half-
dozen other states, including
Arizona, Florida and Maine.
States’ general revenues are
expected to grow by about 2.5
percent in 2016, according to the
National Association of State
Budget Officers. As they prepare
their next budgets, “states are
still going to be very pinched” to
meet rising costs for K-12
schools, Medicaid and core services, said David Adkins, executive director and chief executive
of The Council of State
Governments.
Added to the mix will be several emerging issues, such as how
to quell a rise in opiate addictions and overdoses, and
whether to extend regulations to
online fantasy sports and to
individuals renting rides or lodging through the “sharing economy.”
Some states also will be
wrestling with unique local
issues, including flood recovery
in South Carolina, whether to
keep the Confederate emblem on
the Mississippi flag, as well as
ethics overhauls following political scandals in New York,
Missouri and New Mexico.
Influential national groups
such as the American Civil
Liberties Union and the Family
Research Council are preparing
for a new round of legislative
debates after the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in June that states
must allow same-sex marriage.
Their focus now is on the effect
of that ruling.
There are 22 states with laws
barring discrimination based on
sexual orientation and 21 with
laws limiting the government’s
ability to burden the free exercise of religion. But just four
states — Connecticut, Rhode
Island, Illinois and New Mexico
— have both.
The ACLU will be seeking to
expand the list of places barring
discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity.
It’s targeting at least a half dozen
states — Arizona, Florida,
Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and
Pennsylvania — that have
Republican-led legislatures and
also may be pivotal in presidential elections.
The Supreme Court’s decision
“certainly provides momentum
on the issue,” said Pennsylvania
Rep. Dan Frankel, a Democrat
from the Pittsburgh area who
has been unsuccessfully sponsoring gay rights bills for more
than a decade.
He said challenges remain and
pointed to a November referendum in which Houston voters
rejected a city ordinance extending nondiscrimination protections to gay and transgender
people.
The Family Research Council,
which opposed the Houston
ordinance, is supporting state
measures that would grant
broad protections “from government discrimination” against
people “who have a sincere belief
— religious or not — in natural
marriage,” said Quena Gonzalez,
the group’s director of state and
local affairs.
Missouri House Majority
Leader Mike Cierpiot said many
of his Republican colleagues
were alarmed by the Supreme
Court ruling on gay marriage.
“I think there’s a lot of states
that are looking at this and seeing what can be done to make
sure that religious freedoms are
respected,” said Cierpiot, a
Republican from suburban
Kansas City.
An intense debate over gay
rights already is shaping up in
Indiana, where a religious-rights
law passed last spring thrust the
state into the national spotlight
over concerns it could sanction
discrimination against gays and
lesbians. A coalition of 150 businesses is backing legislation to
ban discrimination in housing,
employment and public accommodations based on a person’s
sexual orientation or gender
identity.
An LGBT rights proposal outlined by Indiana Senate
Republicans would grant broad
exceptions intended to protect
small business owners and religious schools, nonprofits and
adoption agencies. For example,
a wedding-related business with
fewer than four employees could
refuse to do work for a same-sex
marriage.
Other issues that made headlines in 2015 also are expected to
lead legislative agendas in the
new year:
— Lawmakers in several states
are seeking to expand gun rights,
citing a need for self-defense following a spate of mass shootings
in San Bernardino, California, a
community college in Ore v