Each of them, to varying degrees, makes it illegal to infringe on an individual's religious beliefs. While this, on the face of it, sounds good, the reality is quite different. Drafted and promoted by the Christian right the intention of these bills is to create legal loopholes exempting individuals and groups from complying with a wide range of established legal precedents including gay rights legislation. For instance, a person who believed that homosexuality was morally wrong would not have to rent an apartment to a gay person, or parents who did not believe in evolution could claim that a school violated their religious freedom by teaching it to their child. It is another battle in the Christian right's war against secular humanism.
Religion occupies an idiosyncratic place in American public life.
For them freedom from religion was as important as freedom of religion. These contradictory rights lead to a tension that is inherent in the very concept of democracy. Margaret Marshall's enforcement of Harvard's letterhead policy in no way prevented Mary Ann Glendon's practice of her religion. Yet each of these cases reframes a difference of opinion as an unconscionable, bigoted attack on Catholicism. Even more infuriating is the fact that for so long this press refused to take seriously the ever present and undeniable reality of queer bashing.