by Chelsea Langston

In mid-May, 2015, the Nebraska legislature tabled a workplace nondiscrimination bill to add sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) to the list of protected classes, in part because the religious freedom protections were uncertain. States and cities need to protect religious freedom when advancing other rights—and faith-based organizations need to be engaged so that this will happen.

An amendment to the bill aimed at providing a modicum of religious freedom protections fell short and produced a heated debate about who would actually receive accommodations. As states and municipalities around the country consider, and ultimately pass, versions of SOGI laws, it is essential that faith based organizations enter the dialogue to craft language that will protect their rights to continue to operate according to their principles.

On May 14^th, Nebraska’s legislature made passage unlikely of Lincoln Senator Adam Morfeld’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) nondiscrimination bill after a heated debate over adding religious freedom protections did not result in agreement about changes to the bill. Senator Morfeld said he would table Bill LB586 for the rest of the session, preserving it for next year. The Journal Star reported: “A similar bill fell to a filibuster last year, yet supporters had gained hope this go-around, thanks to backing from the business community, especially in the state’s two largest cities.”

While the bill’s intention to protect gay and transgender individuals from facing discrimination in the workplace is positive, the proposed legislation struck many complex and heated chords with Nebraska lawmakers and much of the public. Many faith-based organizations and individuals have serious concerns about categorizing sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in civil rights law. Some believe it is problematic to treat complex, personal, sexual identities and attractions as essentially the same as immutable characteristics such as race, national identity, and ethnicity. In many faith traditions, sexual orientation and gender identity raise questions of nature and nurture, as well as the issue of an individual’s choice to act on such identities or attractions. Others, to be sure, just find such protections unnecessary and question whether gay and transgender individuals are in such a vulnerable place in the job market and economy that they need particular legal protection.

Proponents of such SOGI laws should acknowledge that religions generally have, throughout history, aligned their doctrines with traditional conservative sexual ethics and lifestyles. Supporters and objectors to proposed legislation such as Nebraska’s nondiscrimination bill can agree that these bills evoke strong feelings on both sides that arise from strong desires to protect the ability of individuals to live the lives they feel compelled to live. Even Senator Morfeld recognized the challenges of his bill after three hours of debate, stating: “We are at a point where we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit.”

How should faith communities respond when bills like these are proposed? Some faith leaders resist entering into a discussion at all of how to incorporate ample accommodations for religious conscience into SOGI laws for fear that such protections would actually help SOGI laws pass, given their concerns about treating SOGI issues the same as race and ethnicity Yet it is clear that legislators and the public less and less share their concerns about expanding legal protections. It is a likely prospect in most states and in many major cities that, If not this year, then next year a SOGI bill will win a majority. If religious individuals and institutions are to be free to continue to operate according to their sincerely held religious beliefs in areas such as hiring, it is essential they speak up now to create robust protections for their freedom to live out their faith in their organizations.

Saying “no” carte blanche to the concept of SOGI laws will not stop such laws from going forward in the long-term. It may stall such proposed laws temporarily, but ultimately, SOGI laws will pass. The only question that remains is whether such laws will contain language that protects the religious beliefs of society’s many conservative faith-based institutions that may object to providing certain employment opportunities or services to those whose lifestyles do not align with the religious core values of the organization.

Here’s the challenge for faith leaders and faith-based organizations: whatever their views on expanding SOGI protections, getting engaged in the legislative discussions about the content of such bills will ultimately make better, more just, legislation. As Professor Douglas Laycock, supporter of marriage equality and a strong proponent of religious freedom, stated: “There is now a statewide law barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in Utah—the reddest of red states. And there are important religious exemptions. The religious exemptions made it possible to enact a gay rights law.”

Instead of asking why people of faith should consider engaging in the shaping of such legislation at all, perhaps the better, but more difficult, question to ask is how? How can faith communities, whether they support or oppose SOGI legislation, engage in the difficult discussions around competing rights? How can they best ensure that religious institutions are protected to fully live out their faith-based beliefs and practices while still protecting gay and transgender individuals from invidious workplace mistreatment?

So before Nebraska’s next session, and before laws like this are passed everywhere, faith communities need to take some time to think about the important questions that have to be asked, and to seriously consider the limited amount of time in which efforts to protect religious freedom will be viable. There are serious questions that people of faith, or no faith, disagree about, such as whether and to what extent businesses owned by religious individuals ought to be accommodated under such SOGI laws. It is worth considering whether, instead of continuing to fight bills that seek to do justice to historically marginalized LGBT people, faith leaders instead should engage in the difficult conversations about how to protect the legitimate rights of faith-based organizations of all kinds when those bills are put forward. The increasing opposition that people committed to traditional sexual morality face can be a source of motivation. The shared experience of marginalization can be a reason for advocates of SOGI laws and advocates of religious freedom to sit down together to consider how to protect our differing ways of being present in the world.