The LGBT community, along with anyone who loathes baseless fanatical intolerance and bigotry scored a big win today in Indiana as the state’s legislature announced changes to their controversial religious freedom bill.
NBC News is reporting that the state’s Republican leadership unveiled changes spelling out that the new law “does not allow businesses to refuse service to gays or other minority groups.”
Brian Bosma, speaker of the state House, said that the language would make clear that “we value you — gay, straight, black, white, religious, nonreligious. We value each and every Hoosier.”
According to the NBC News report the new language of the bill prohibits businesses from using the new law “to refuse service to anyone on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or a range of other classifications, including race and religion.”
Bosma and other Republican leaders confirmed that both houses have enough votes to pass the changes.
Chris Douglas, founding president of the Indy Rainbow Chamber of Commerce, told reporters that the changes were only a first step towards protecting gays from discrimination in Indiana:
We know that this is only the beginning. The end is that the equality guaranteed to all other Hoosiers through the Indiana civil rights code is guaranteed also to us.
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