Kansas Family Voice is dedicated to preserving our freedom to believe, share, and live out our faith – publicly as well as privately. Our faith compels us to live differently, even in the way we conduct business.
Christian business owners intentionally operate their businesses according to their beliefs. Within certain limitations, all business owners must have the freedom to live out their faith.
We promote policy that protects and enhances religious freedom for business owners of faith, and we defend against policies that erode the right to freely live out their faith in the marketplace. We also advance laws that ensure people of faith are treated fairly in the courts so that government entities do not have the power to arbitrarily dismiss them or treat them with hostility.
Our lobbyists and state allies serve as the voice of Christian business owners in capitols across the country, representing their interest in religious freedom in state policy.
AN UNFAIR CHOICE:
YOUR FAITH OR YOUR LIVELIHOOD
Religious freedom is often called our first freedom, and this is not just because it’s first on the list in the First Amendment of our Constitution. The freedom to believe and to act on those beliefs is foundational to a free society. Yet, it’s also the freedom that is most under attack.
This is because people of faith in most societies — and certainly in America — have been the voice of Truth and morality in culture. The Church’s role is to guide culture toward what is or is not morally acceptable — in media, law and government, academia, science and technology, and certainly in business. Activists know that ending religious freedom will prevent believers from serving as “salt and light” in our culture.
CERTAINLY, RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IS PROMINENTLY UNDER ATTACK IN THE MARKETPLACE. YET, EXCLUDING PEOPLE OF FAITH FROM BEING ABLE TO OWN AND OPERATE THEIR BUSINESSES, OR MAKE PURCHASING DECISIONS, BASED ON THEIR FAITH WOULD HAVE DEVASTATING EFFECTS ON THE ECONOMY.
Over the last several years, business owners in multiple states have been given an unfair choice by state governments: choose between your faith and your livelihood. But that isn’t how religious freedom is supposed to work. Religious freedom was always understood to protect the religious convictions of the few from the coercion of the masses. The Founders wisely understood that less-favored belief systems would be under attack unless there were explicit protections in place.
A BRIEF HISTORY ON
THE FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION
The free exercise of religion was historically one of the most protected freedoms in America — until recently.
In 1990, in a case known as Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court rolled back most of these protections. In response, a bipartisan Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton, to restore the balancing test used to the protect our free exercise of religion in the courts.
In 1997, in City of Boerne v. Flores, the Court held that the federal RFRA only applied to federal claims. Thus, individual states had to pass their own RFRAs. There are currently 21 states have some sort of RFRA. Federal and state RFRAs are used as a defense when the government has violated a person’s sincerely held religious beliefs.
In 2014, RFRA was successfully used to defend the right of Hobby Lobby, a Christian owned corporation, to be exempt from Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate. In Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, the Court held that the government had to provide a religious corporation a reasonable accommodation to the general law in order not to violate the corporation’s free exercise of religion.
SEE IF YOUR STATE HAS RFRA PROTECTIONS
The Free exercise Clause in the Constitution has also been used to protect religious business owners who do not want to be compelled to participate in an event that violates their religious beliefs. The most famous case illustrating this is Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Masterpiece centered around a Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, who politely declined to make a wedding cake for a “same-sex” wedding. He was accused of violating the state’s sexual orientation and gender identity law (SOGI). Jack had made many other baked goods for the homosexual couple, but because his artistry was an outworking of his relationship with his Savior, making a cake — and thus participating in a wedding opposed to the biblical teaching on marriage — would violate the foundational faith that led him to start his business in the first place.
In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld Jack’s right to live out his beliefs and condemned the Civil Rights Commission’s open hostility to his faith. Jack has been targeted for his beliefs by LGBTQ+ activists and has since been sued two more times on similar grounds.
Read an article from our archives to learn what failures to protect religious freedoms forced Jack to go to court.
1New Mexico House Bill 51, 2018
FORCED TO VIOLATE THEIR FAITH
There are four primary scenarios where business owners are forced to violate their faith:
EMPLOYMENT
Governments are trying to force businesses to retain or hire individuals who do not fit their businesses values. For example, a funeral home is being forced to retain a man who has begun to identify as a woman, dress like a woman, and wants to be treated as a woman. However, a funeral home is a very solemn place where families are in grief. The owners do not think it an appropriate place to promote social experimentation in violation with their values. Business owners should have the right to make these determinations for their businesses.
INSURANCE
States are attempting to force private companies to provide health insurance that covers abortions and gender-transition services. Not only do these services violate many employers’ religious convictions, but many of them are prohibitively expensive.
FACILITIES
State legislatures and some localities are attempting to force businesses to allow biological men into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms. This has a major impact on businesses – especially small to medium-sized businesses – which, depending on the law, may have to do major renovation to comply, or may have to put women and children at risk by allowing men into vulnerable places, such as locker rooms and fitting rooms.
EVENTS
Many localities and some states have passed what are known as sexual orientation and gender identity laws (SOGI). These laws have been used repeatedly to attack people of faith in the business sector, particularly those in the wedding industry. Florists, photographers, venue owners, and bakers are being told they must participate in same-sex wedding or gender transition celebrations regardless of their biblical views on marriage and gender. Many have faced lawsuits, forced “re-education” for them and their staff by the state, civil penalties, and even criminal penalties as well as the loss of their business.
But it isn’t just those in the wedding industry being affected. Graphic designers and other artists have been targeted by state governments for refusing to create custom-made materials to advance the LGBTQ+ agenda — such as promoting gay-pride events.
SEE WHAT SOGI LAWS ARE IN YOUR STATE.
UNEQUAL TREATMENT BY GOVERNMENT
Some localities have tried to exclude certain businesses from a government contract or other benefit (such as grants) simply because of the business’s stance on an issue. One of the most well-known instances of this involved Chick-fil-A in San Antonio, Texas. The city council excluded Chick-fil-A from the city’s airport because of the restaurant’s affiliation with certain religious nonprofits. This is not the free market at work, but powerful government actors choosing which business owners’ beliefs it agrees with.
Kansas Family Voice was proud to work with our state ally, Texas Values, to pass a bill that prohibits this kind of faith-targeted discrimination in the Lone Star State.
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And It Begins!
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SPEAK UP
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