Religious Freedom Restoration proposal sparks protest at Michigan Capitol

Michigan protestors call religious freedom House Bill 5958 'a license to discriminate' Protesters voice opposition to the House-approved Religious Freedom Restoration Act outside the Michigan Capitol on December 16, 2014.

LANSING, MI — Protesters gathered outside Michigan Capitol on Tuesday morning, carrying colorful signs and chanting in opposition to a religious freedom bill they called a "license to discriminate."

Nikki Gestwite, 28, helped organize the protest on Facebook after she and two friends first considered plans for a smaller rally in their hometown of Adrian.

"We will not stand for hate," said Gestwite, who described the event as a legitimate grassroots affair. "We don’t agree with the bill. We don’t think it's right, and we think it's kind of a step back to the '60s. That's not cool."

Speakers were expected to address the crowd on the west steps of the Capitol later Tuesday, and Gestwite said she was also working to bring in music for a possible dance party.

“I want to be lifted and given hope,” she said “We are upset, but it’s also very much about hope.”

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), approved by Michigan's Republican-led House earlier this month in a straight party-line vote, faces an uncertain future in the state Senate with just days left in the lame-duck session.

The Michigan RFRA, modeled after a federal version enacted in 1993, would allow individuals or businesses to seek exemptions to state or local laws that substantially burden their sincerely held religious beliefs.

A government could fight the claim by proving it had a compelling interest for a law and that it sought to achieve that public policy goal in the least restrictive way possible. Courts would make the call.

Critics fear the bill, which was introduced alongside a gay rights proposal that stalled in committee, could be used to challenge local non-discrimination ordinances or any number of other state or municipal laws.

“I happen to be a lesbian, so it’s very important to me in that way, but it’s really about anybody who is different,” said Gestwite, who works with a volunteer community group called "Changing Adrian."

Supporters say the bill mirrors religious freedom laws already on the books at the federal level and in 19 other states. They’ve fought the charge that the legislation would sanction discrimination or lead to widespread exemptions.

“The kinds of cases that religious claimants have made under RFRA for the most part do not involve the culture wars at all,” University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock said Monday morning during a press call organized by the Michigan Catholic Conference.

“These are cases about people paying fines or going to jail for their religion, even when the state doesn’t really have a good reason, in America in the 21st Century. That should not be happening. If the state does have a good reason, the state wins.”

Christopher C. Lund, a fellow religious liberty scholar and associate law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, said that the RFRA would codify religious liberty protections in the state constitution as they are currently interpreted by Michigan courts.

He noted a Texas case where a Native American student was told he could not attend a local school district unless he cut his hair, which was kept long for religious reasons.

There have not been a lot of cases in states with RFRA laws, Lund said, but they have been “very important to the people involved, and a lot of them, I think quite sympathetic to all parts of the political spectrum.”

Update: Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, on Tuesday afternoon gave his clearest indication yet that the upper chamber is unlikely to vote on the RFRA proposal before the 2013-14 session comes to an end.

“Well you know, we’ve got these young fresh people that just got elected that are clamoring to take on difficult issues,” he told reporters. “We took most of them off the plate in the last four years. There’s not much left for them to work on, so they might get a chance on this one.”

Jonathan Oosting is a Capitol reporter for MLive Media Group. Email him, find him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.

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