Louisiana lawmakers are considering three bills endorsed by the state's family advocates – but only one seems to have a good chance of becoming law.
One of the bills is stuck in the House. The Louisiana Religious Freedom Constitutional Amendment Act (HB 340) received only 53 of the required 70 votes needed for a two-thirds majority to send the amendment to next year's ballot.
Gene Mills, president of the Louisiana Family Forum, supports the measure.
"If it passes," he said, "it'll be a citizen's guarantee against government intervention in sincerely held religious expression."
House Bill 60, stalled in the Senate, would set standards regarding names on birth certificates. According to Mills, the measure has been subject to much political maneuvering, and was presented because a gay-identified couple from New York wanted to adopt a Louisiana child and put the two fathers' names on the certificate.
A third pro-family bill, he added, has the best chance to pass the Legislature. House Bill 517 is designed to protect medical workers' conscience rights based on their religious beliefs, giving them protection from participating in abortion, dispensing birth control, destructive embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning or sterilization.
The Legislature must vote on the bills 6 p.m. Thursday.
-- Roger Greer
