Colorado Democrats managed to snuff out an anti-LGBTQ “religious freedom” bill designed to give Christians special rights to discriminate. Brian Eason writes:
A state House panel for a third straight year rejected a Republican-led effort to expand religious freedom protections in Colorado, derailing an emotional fight over whether people should be able to deny services to someone on the basis of religion.
Religious freedom laws have been on the books in the U.S. since 1993, but in the last few years have been defined by a single issue: whether Christians should be able to refuse to provide wedding-related services to same-sex couples. [...]
But opponents call it a thinly veiled attempt to legalize discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. And, they fear a slippery slope — how far could someone go in claiming religious belief to justify ignoring anti-discrimination laws?
“At its core, the premise of this bill is to allow people to use religion to ignore laws they don’t want to follow,” said Kelly Brough, president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.
Brough has it exactly right—these bills are slippery slope bills. If Christians successfully gain special rights to violate constitutionally protected rights of LGBTQ Americans, the sky’s the limit.