The revisions to the San Antonio, Texas, anti-discrimination ordinance, adopted by the City Council last week to broadly prohibit discrimination on the bases of sexual orientation and gender identity, have sparked a large amount of commentary because of their impact on religious freedom. A growing number of cities have adopted similar measures, although without eliciting such widespread debate.

The San Antonio measure drew so much notice in part because of the proposed ban on appointing to any city board or commission anyone the City Council considers to be biased “in word or deed” “against any person, group or organization on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, age, or disability.” That’s an extremely broad and yet uncertain sweep: would a Catholic be disqualified as religiously biased for regarding Baptists as wrongly rejecting the authority of the Pope? The City Council thought better of it and deleted this provision.

Elsewhere, while expanding the range of what counts as illegal discriminatory acts, the revised ordinance includes a variety of religious exemptions. But are the exemptions sufficient to protect people and organizations of faith peacefully going about their lives and performing their works of service?

* The requirement of nondiscrimination in public accommodations extends to every kind of business that is open to the public and offering any product or service for payment, while exempting only private clubs (and religious, political, and social organizations if any profits they make are used to further their respective missions). No protection here for wedding planners and photographers desiring not to be coopted into celebrating religiously significant events they object to; no protection for legal firms or medical practices whose moral convictions about how best to use their skills run afoul of the newly expanded anti-discrimination rules.

* The rules on housing allow religious organizations to limit to persons of the same religion the sale, occupancy, and rental of spaces they hold for other than commercial purposes. What do the rules mean, though, for facilities owned by religious organizations that desire not to limit their use narrowly to people of the same faith but instead just to maintain a religious standard of moral conduct by those utilizing the spaces?

* The expanded nondiscrimination requirements are enforced on all entities that contract with the city-there is no exemption that allows a religious organization that considers religion in hiring to contract with the city, even if that organization will serve without discrimination everyone who needs its services.

Cities, states, and federal agencies that seek to eradicate discrimination need to figure out how they can prevent the targeted discrimination without at the same time mandating new discrimination against countercultural religious people and organizations.

Note: although it didn’t succeed in stopping the City Council from adopting the anti-discrimination ordinance, pro-religious freedom groups in San Antonio did organize an attractive website to make their case, using this unexpected but appropriate name: San Antonio Human Rights Coalition.