INDIANAPOLIS — On a day when the Statehouse was filled with conflicting groups rallying for and against civil rights for gay and transgendered Hoosiers, Indiana Senate Republicans introduced what they hope is a blueprint for moving forward.
The proposed legislation would add sexual orientation and gender identity protections to the state’s civil rights law while also carving out exemptions for those who claim religious reasons as a basis to discriminate. It would put new language in state law to expand the nondiscrimination protections that already cover race, gender and age in such areas as housing, employment and public accommodations.
But it would also exempt some small businesses — plus churches and faith-based institutions, including private universities — from having to abide by those new protections.
The bill’s author, state Sen. Travis Holdman, R-Markle, unveiled details to the media Tuesday afternoon, saying that if it passed “it would become the law of the land in Indiana.” It came at the end of the Legislature's Organization Day, an annual formality that precedes the start of the legislative session.
Acknowledging how contentious the issue of expanding the state’s civil rights law has become, Holdman also said he hopes both sides in the debate would find reason to celebrate.
“Though I doubt we’ll see that coming out of the chute,” he said.
The detailed, 20-page bill was crafted by Holdman and Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne, with the help from Senate Republican lawyers looking for middle ground on a deeply polarizing issue.
Democrats, along with Indiana’s business community — led by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce — have been pressing the Legislature to expand the civil rights law for months.
But pushback has come from the conservative religious community, which claims any such expansion infringes on their faith beliefs.
The divide was apparent Tuesday as supporters and opponents filled the Statehouse. Both sides carried placards and wore T-shirts bearing the initials “LGBT.”
But while supporters used those letters to call for support for civil rights for lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered Hoosiers, opponents of the measure used the letters to stand in for the phrase: "Let God Be True."
Holdman said that in crafting the legislation, he opted in favor of religious liberty over blanket protections covering sexual orientation and gender identity.
An example: Holdman’s bill would negate local human rights ordinances that 17 Indiana communities — including New Albany — have adopted to protect their gay and transgendered residents. Holdman said many of those local ordinances don’t contain enough exemptions for people who object based on their religious beliefs.
He also built in a $1,000 penalty for anyone who files what he called a "frivolous" discrimination complaint with the Indiana Civil Rights Commission.
And the legislation would require transgender people to live as their preferred gender for at least one year, or provide medical verification of their status, before filing a discrimination complaint. It also takes on an issue that’s emerged in other states and communities that have moved to include gender identity in their civil rights law: It addresses the use of public bathrooms.
In the legislation, the state’s schools and businesses would be allowed to write their own policies on the use of bathrooms or showers based on sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. They also could decide for themselves what dress code to impose on students and workers.
Under the bill, those rules wouldn’t count as discriminatory.
House and Senate Democrats have called for simpler solution, saying a fix could be had by adding four words and a comma: “sexual orientation, gender identity” to the Indiana's civil rights law.
But Holdman and Long said Tuesday the legislation had to be more sweeping and detailed in nature.
"There are parts of this bill that are dealing with some of the struggles we are seeing today, in particular with the gender identity issue,” Long said. “We are making sure we give our businesses and our schools and our public institutions the ability to define who can and cannot use [their] bathroom."
Such details may exacerbate the continuing conflict over expanding the state’s civil rights law, exemplified by the sounds of cheers, jeers and prayers from both sides of the debate echoed through the Statehouse on Tuesday.
Speakers at a rally organized by conservative Christian group the Indiana Pastors Alliance said adding protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity would force them to violate the tenets of their faith.
But supporters of an expanded civil rights law, led by gay rights advocacy group Freedom Indiana argued that claims of religious freedom shouldn’t be used as a license to discriminate.