Perhaps unable to sense the prevailing mood of the country and its courts, Rep. Mike Johnson plans on taking another crack at presenting a RFRA bill to the Louisiana legislature in 2016.
From The Times-Picayune:
"Johnson believes the state needs to provide extra legal protections for religious people who oppose same-sex marriage. His bill would provide a buffer for people who don't want to assist with same-sex marriages, but who have a job that might require them to do so. The details of the proposal have not been worked out.
The freshman House member brought similar legislation– which he called the Marriage and Conscience bill– to provide such protections this past session, but it was killed by a House committee early on in the session.
Lawmakers and New Orleans business interests were spooked by the legislation, thinking it could paint Louisiana as an unfriendly place for LGBT people. Several companies and sports organizations had threatened to pull out of Indiana and Arkansas when those states approved similar bills earlier in the year."
Not only is this bad news in a moral sense, it is unfathomable in a business sense. In a state that is still finding damage 10 years after Hurricane Katrina, it seems ludicrous that the legislature would even consider a bill that would jeopardize a Super Bowl bid or other money-making ventures for Louisiana.
Here's hoping that the business community and sane citizens of the Pelican State can make the legislature see reason for a second time.