Last year, Democrats split up the terms “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” in the Minnesota Human Rights Act, and that meant religious organizations still had an exemption for not hiring on the basis of “sexual orientation,” but that exemption no longer applies to “gender identity.”

When these two terms were split in the Minnesota Human Rights Act, we thought the ramifications on religious exemptions were accidental. //

Throughout this year’s committee process, it became very clear that the folks who pushed this change had no intention of extending the exemptions to “gender identity.”

Recently, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard the bill during an evening hearing but waited until 12:30 a.m. to bring the bill up for discussion. Issues of this significance should never be discussed under the cover of darkness. Republicans offered an amendment that would have extended the religious exemption to include to the new “gender identity” term, but Democrats did not support that change. This bill will now be considered for inclusion in the Omnibus Judiciary bill.

This is alarming because in this bill S. F. 4292, it means that religious organizations can now be held legally accountable if they choose to not hire someone of a certain “gender identity,” regardless of their religious beliefs. This is a blatant infringement on constitutional rights. The government cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion according to the 1st Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed this throughout our history. That means we are dealing with an unconstitutional law.

Earlier this year a Democrat senator went on record stating that constitutionality shouldn’t matter when legislators are writing their bills. I disagree – it is our duty to know the potential constitutional ramifications that our laws may have. The government cannot compel churches and religious organizations to abandon their deeply held religious beliefs.