The majority of Virginia Republicans in Congress are backing an effort they say will protect religious institutions and businesses from having to abide by the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling.
Conservatives fear that after the Supreme Court ruled gay marriage is legal in all 50 states, courts will force religious people to comply with something that's against their faith. They say if a church, religious school or business refuses to comply they risk losing their nonprofit status. That's why Virginia Republican Congressman Rob Wittman is endorsing the First Amendment Defense Act.
“It is indeed a First Amendment Freedom. I want to make sure that people aren’t unfairly prosecuted for making those personal choices that should be part of the individual liberties and freedoms that they enjoy under our Constitution.”
Besides Wittman, the legislation is co-sponsored by Virginia Republicans Dave Brat, Robert Hurt, Randy Forbes and Bob Goodlatte. Wittman says it's vital that Congress protect religious liberty.
“And I think that many businesses have been put in untenable positions with that, to say I want to make sure that I can freely practice what I believe in how they conduct their business. I believe in the United States that they should be able to do that. I believe that our founding fathers had that in mind.”
Critics say the legislation will allow bigots to discriminate against the LGBT community under the guise of religious freedom, though Wittman disagrees.
“And that’s not discriminatory towards an individual. That’s making sure the individual that has a business can decide how they do business. In every other element of business they’re allowed to do that under market mechanisms. I just want to make sure that they are not unfairly prosecuted under those provisions.”
While the bulk of Virginia Republicans are sponsoring the bill, not all of them are on board yet, including Congressman Morgan Griffith. He says he supports the effort, but he still wants to see the language of the bill fine tuned because it may be overly broad.
“I do like the thrust of it. You need to make sure that you know you don't suddenly have a southern Baptist minister being fined because he won't perform a marriage that his faith tells him is not appropriate.”
Virginia Republican Congressman Scott Rigell says he’s still working through the implications of the Supreme Court ruling, because marriage is a religious act in many faiths.
“It is more of a religious based commitment rather than a societal or governmental one. And the implications of all that I think we’re still kind of working through that, even as a nation.”
But most Democrats say the debate over gay marriage has now been decided by the Court. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine says the so-called First Amendment Defense Act is redundant.
“The First Amendment doesn’t need an exclamation point after it, it’s the First Amendment. So I think when you try statutorily to kind of like um…I worry that you gum up the First Amendment if you try statutorily to add a gloss on it.”
As for whether the debate over gay marriage will continue for decades to come - as has happened with abortion? Kaine doubts it.
“I don’t think so, I really don’t. I think the degree of popular acceptance that equality means equality and that in matters of official recognition or law people shouldn’t be treated as less than equal because they’re LGBT.”
It’s unclear if the legislation will come up for a vote this fall, but the conservative wing of the G-O-P is pressuring party leaders to make it a top priority.