Ind. Senate poised to allow hiring based on religion

INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Senate is poised to allow some state contractors to discriminate in hiring based on religion.

Senate Bill 127, authored by Sen. Travis Holdman, would allow religious-affiliated organizations that receive state contracts — including hospitals, universities, and child service providers — to hire people based on their religion. The bill also would allow those organizations to require employees to follow religious tenants.

A final Senate vote on the bill is scheduled for Tuesday.

Holdman, a Republican from Markle, Ind., said he filed the bill to help Indiana Wesleyan University obtain state workforce training grants. The Attorney General's office last year determined that the university's religious lifestyle mandate violated state contracting requirements against employment discrimination, he said.

"My concern is that we have a large number of religious organizations providing services to the state of Indiana," he said.

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But opponents say organizations seeking public money should be required to treat all members of the public equally.

"We feel that religious institutions should be able to hire whomever they choose and have their employees follow their religious tenants as long as they are not taking public funding," said Chris Paulsen, spokeswoman for Indiana Equality Action. "Once a religious institution takes public funding or bids on public projects they should then have to follow the rules like public businesses do in regards to discrimination based on any trait — sex, race, gender, sexual and gender orientation, etc."

Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane, a Democrat from Anderson, Ind., tried Monday to add language to the bill that would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, but it was shot down 36-6.

He questioned whether the bill would allow employees to be questioned about private matters such as their use of birth control.

A measure similar to Holdman's bill stirred controversy last year. Former Rep. Eric Turner sought to slip it into an unrelated tax bill during a House committee hearing, but legislative leaders quickly moved to pan it.

That measure would have allowed any school, college, or religious institution affiliated with a church to make employment decisions based on religion, even if those organizations have a contract with the state.

Last year's measure came as Arizona lawmakers approved a measure that would allow businesses with strongly held religious beliefs to deny service to gays and lesbians, as well as two cases that were pending before the U.S. Supreme Court in which religious business owners wanted their companies to be exempt from providing employee insurance coverage for contraception.

Over the summer, the Supreme Court ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that family-owned companies cannot be forced to offer insurance coverage for certain birth control methods they equate with abortion.

This year, the measure appears to have more momentum. It is one of many "religious liberty" bills that Republican lawmakers have filed in Indiana this session.

The frenzy of such bills follows a court decision that effectively legalized gay marriage in Indiana and a November election that led to larger, more conservative Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate.

Several of the bills would restrict state actions if they burden a person's right to exercise of religion. Other bills protect students who express religious points of view in their school work and public school teachers who display Christmas trees in their classrooms.

If Holdman's bill passes the Senate, it would still need approval from the House.

Contributing: Richard Wolf, USA TODAY; The Associated Press.