Indiana’s Senate passed a bill earlier this month that would allow religiously affiliated organizations, including universities and hospitals, to discriminate against employees on the basis of religion, even in the case of state contracts. On February 3, a majority of the Republican-controlled Senate voted in favour of the bill that would permit faith-based recipients of state funds to hire workers based on religion, thus allowing these organizations to also require their employees to abide by certain religious tenets.

While all ten Democrats voted against the bill, they were joined by a lone Republican, Senator Ron Grooms from Jeffersonville. The bill will now be moved to the House for passage.

Travis Holdman, the Republican responsible for the bill, said it was modeled on certain allowances mentioned in the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“It's not a legal license to discriminate,” Holdman said. “It just says we're going to pull ourselves in line with federal law that allows for this kind of carve out, this kind of exemption, for faith based organizations.”

However, Democratic Senator Karen Tallian said the wording of this bill, which would allow employers to require employees to abide by certain religious tenets, goes far beyond the wordings of the federal law.

“This is outrageous,” she said. “How many tenets must you conform to? Do you have to go to church every Sunday? Can you eat meat on a Friday.”

According to Holdman, the bill was filed to help Indiana Wesleyan University acquire state workforce training funds after the Attorney General’s office determined last year that the university’s religious stance violated Indiana’s contracting requirements against employment discrimination.

Photo Credits: Gannett