February 19, 2018
The rash of new “religious exemption” laws passed by state legislatures around the United States represent a thinly-veiled assault against the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. In the absence of robust nondiscrimination protections, these laws function as a license to discriminate rather than a good faith attempt to protect religious liberty and should be repealed.

The 41-page report, “‘All We Want is Equality’: Religious Exemptions and Discrimination against LGBT People in the United States,” documents how recent laws carve out space to discriminate against LGBT people in adoption and foster care, health care, and access to some goods and services. These laws fail to balance moral and religious objections to LGBT relationships and identities with the rights of LGBT people themselves, Human Rights Watch found. The findings illustrate that these exemptions encourage discriminatory refusals, discourage LGBT people from seeking out services, and harm people’s dignity.