News Archive

Professor Robert Katz spoke with an Indianapolis television news reporter about the language that Indiana lawmakers added to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act on April 2. This language prevents the act from being used to override anti-discrimination laws in the dozen or so Indiana communities with local human rights ordinances.

Katz said that "more or less, nothing has changed except for the circus that has been in town for the last two weeks and damaged the state's reputation and our economy."  The added language, he said, may be too little too late.

"The battle over LGBT rights in Indiana isn't going away,” Katz said. "Not only is the fight not over, the fight is barely getting started." 

Indiana’s Republican lawmakers announced on April 2 that language would be added to the bill to prohibit discrimination.   

Professor Robert Katz said of the move, “The amendment is historic because it enacts the words ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ into the Indiana Code in an effort to protect the rights of LGBT Hoosiers, but it is also incomplete.  While it may help put out the fire that the Indiana legislature set by enacting the original law, it fails to solve the fundamental problem: that it is perfectly legal to discriminate against LGBT people at the state level.  This self-inflicted crisis will not end until the Indiana Civil Rights Act is amended to ban discrimination based on ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity.’”

Professor Katz teaches courses on nonprofit law, the First Amendment, law and religion, and the law of healthcare organizations.