Thursday, February 03, 2000
Churches win right of refusal in House
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FRANKFORT — A proposed law that would exempt churches from state civil rights laws by allowing them to refuse to rent facilities to groups they differ with on religious beliefs passed the Kentucky House Wednesday with strong support.
The bill faces an uncertain fate in the state Senate, a probable challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and questions about its constitutionality.
House Bill 70, sponsored by Rep. Tom Kerr, D-Taylor Mill, passed the House by a vote of 87 to 12. All of Northern Kentucky's lawmakers voted for it except Rep. Arnold Simpson, D-Covington, one of five African-American lawmakers in the General Assembly.
“I talked to (Mr. Kerr) a lot about this, and I understand what he is trying to get at,” Mr. Simpson said after the vote. “But when you're dealing with civil rights, you're dealing with something very sacred.”
The bill would not allow a church to deny the use of its facilities to groups or individuals based on race, color, national origin or disability, Mr. Kerr said.
But a church could deny renting one of its facilities, such as a church camp, to a group that does not share its basic religious tenets.
Mr. Kerr was asked to sponsor the bill by the Northern Kentucky Baptist Association, a group of 66 area Baptist churches that owns a church camp in western Boone County.
Four years ago, the organization rented its church camp to a group that does not believe in God, the Free Inquiry Group. The Baptists were uncomfortable about renting the camp to the group but did so out of fear of being sued under state civil rights laws, its leaders testified to the House Judiciary Committee three weeks ago.
Under current law, he said, “A church could be forced to rent their facility to a satanic group.”
Concern about the broad language in the bill prevented it from being voted on until Wednesday.
Mr. Kerr said the bill has been amended since it passed committee so churches that open their facilities for public events such as basketball leagues could not use religion as a reason to exclude anyone from participating.
“So if a Baptist church is running a basketball league that they make available to the public they can't deny a Jewish person or a Buddhist or whatever based on their religion,” he said.
Still, Rep. Eleanor Jordan, D-Louisville, also an African-American, voted no.
“I think it's very dangerous when we start talking about excluding people,” she said.
Jeff Vessels of the Kentucky ACLU has previously said that if the bill passes, the organization would probably challenge it in court.
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