This whole RFRA madness is the most hyperbolic thing in the world. I'll give you a brief history and rundown for religious freedom laws in the US.
In the 1960's, "free exercise" (the part in the first amendment about religious exercise) got a major boost. In the case, Sherbert v. Verner, a women was a Seventh Day Adventist. She was working at a job that originally had her working 5 days a week. It was switched to 6 days a week. Because her religion forbid her from working on Saturday, she was fired. She couldn't find other work and filed for unemployment. She was denied. She said this denial violated her free exercise right because it required her to choose between working and practicing her religion. She sued and ultimately won in the US Supreme Court. NOTE: The majority opinion was drafted by the Court's liberals: Justice Brennan wrote the opinion.
What this did is effectively raise the free exercise standard to "strict scrutiny." "Strict scrutiny" is the absolute highest bar for the government to overcome. It says that if the government's actions, whether by imposing a penalty or withholding a benefit (as here), burdens a citizen's exercise of religion, the government must show that it has a compelling interest (which means like a really serious interest) and that forcing this individual citizen to violate his or her religion is the only way (the "least restrictive means") of attaining that compelling interest. When something requires "strict scrutiny," the government almost never wins.
Fast forward to 1990. A new case came up to the Supreme Court: Employment Division v. Smith. There, two native american were counselors at a drug clinic. They were fired because they had ingested peyote, something they were doing because of their religion. They, like the woman in Sherbert, filed for unemployment. The unemployment office denied their claim because their firing was based on "misconduct," as ingesting peyote was a crime. As such, like the woman in Sherbert, they sued, claiming that their practicing their religion (ingesting peyote) should not disqualify them from receiving unemployment. They lose. NOTE: The majority opinion was drafted by the Court'sconservatives: Justice Scalia wrote the opinion.
What this did is effectively lower the standard of review for free exercise way down. The standard became something like this: "Neutral laws of general applicability do not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment." As the Court says: "It is a permissible reading of the [free exercise clause]...to say that if prohibiting the exercise of religion is not the object of the [law] but merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision, the First Amendment has not been offended....To make an individual's obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law's coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State's interest is 'compelling' - permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, 'to become a law unto himself,' contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.' To adopt a true 'compelling interest' requirement for laws that affect religious practice would lead towards anarchy."
In other words, if a law is neutral and applied to all citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs, it does not violate the free exercise clause. "No one can smoke peyote" is a general law applied to everyone neutrally, regardless of his or her religion. As such, even if your religion demands you do it, you cannot. You will still be charged with a crime (or still not receive benefits relying on your not doing it). The government doesn't have to show a compelling interest. It doesn't have to show the only way to reaching the interest is by specifically stopping specific people from doing something, etc. As you can imagine, under this ruling, the government will almost always win.
People did not like this ruling. In fact, it made many people mad. Now comes RFRA: The Religious Freedom Restoration Act. RFRA was introduced by a liberal democrat and was passed almost unanimously by both the House and the Senate and was signed into law by Democrat, Bill Clinton. What RFRA does is raise the standard back up to the "Sherbert v. Verner" standard mentioned above. As a result, the government in free exercise cases, again, rarely wins. You can see this in the case Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal. There, US Customs agents confiscated hoasca, a sacramental tea that qualifies as a Schedule 1 Substance, an illegal drug. The church wanting to use the drug sued and wanted the tea back (and to be able to ingest it) under RFRA. They win, as the government could not show it had a compelling interest in stopping this particular group of people from ingesting this drug.
So, why is Indiana passing a RFRA statute now? Because RFRA is a federal law. We have two major types of laws in this country: federal and state. They, in theory, work together and address different things. Because RFRA (the 1993 original one) was a federal law, individual state actions (like of Florida's state government as compared to the United States federal government) could not be said to violate it. There was a case about this in the Supreme Court (City of Boerne v. Flores), and, as such, states need their own individual RFRA laws to protect citizens from state laws that violate their religious beliefs.
And that's exactly what happened. Something like thirty states have RFRA laws. Indiana passed literally the same law(s) that has been around for over twenty years. (This is slightly up for debate, as Indiana's RFRA along with Texas' from 1999 provide for explicit protection against private suits where the government is not a party. But what Indiana's RFRA fundamentally does is what you would think it would do. Your state passes a law that says you must serve every person in every context, no matter what (no matter if you fundamentally disagree with the act being requested), with no religious exception. It moreover provides private citizens with the right to privately sue you for violating this rule. RFRA effectively provides that exception as a general rule for all laws. What RFRA is doing, although it is being applied in a private suit, is effectively protecting you against that state law that allowed the suit to be brought by the private citizen.) There is fundamentally nothing extraordinary or new about what they did. And it is beyond disingenuous for democrats (including Chuck Schumer who wrote the original 1993 RFRA law) to now come out criticizing Indiana's law. It's nuts. It's dishonest, political nonsense.
But now that you have that background as to why it's not a big deal at all, I'll explain why it is. There have been a lot of cases recently where people refuse to participate in gay weddings, etc. So, let's say you're a caterer. Someone comes in and says, "I need you to cater my gay wedding." This makes you uncomfortable. You aren't supposed to directly support gay marriage. You especially aren't supposed to participate in gay marriages. As such, you say, "No, I'm sorry, I can't do that." The person is incredibly offended and sues you. In some of these cases, the person getting gay married wins the lawsuit. The caterers, obviously, are sitting there thinking, "I was just trying to be a good Catholic, and now I have to pay punitive damages to this guy? What happened to "if you don't like gay marriage, don't take part in gay marriages?" There are also possible anti-discrimination laws where the caterer could be criminally liable for doing this. Under the Smith standard (the general, neutral law) rules, the caterer would lose. Under Sherbert, he would win. As such, states like Indiana are now beginning to pass RFRA's again to ensure that the caterer will win.
What is making people upset is the idea that the caterer (or whoever) is discriminating against a person in choosing to serve him or her. This makes people think of "No Coloreds" businesses before the Civil Rights Act. In what way is it actually different than that? What's different is that the caterer (or whomever) is choosing not to participate in aparticular activity. He or she is not choosing to discriminate against a person. As I wrote elsewhere: The issue is whether the person is refusing to participate in an act as compared to treating the person unjustly based on what they are. Not serving a gay person just because he's gay? Not alright. Not participating by serving someone in his gay marriage (regardless of his actual orientation)? Completely reasonable. In the same way you may refuse to cater a protestant anti-gay rally, but would otherwise serve any of those same protestants in any other context. What they are is actually pretty irrelevant. As such, you are not discriminating against a person but merely against an activity. A doctor who refuses to perform your abortion because he's Catholic? Seems just. A doctor who refuses to treat your cold because you're pro-choice? Not so just. Etc. Etc.
To be generous to the other side though, the line is not always clear. What counts as participating in an activity? Could a Catholic university not give marital benefits to a Protestant couple? The line isn't clear. For the most part though, there is absolutely no new danger that didn't already exist for over twenty years. It's mostly just politics, and it is so dishonest for people to get on their moral high horses about this. It's honestly infuriating.
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