Map

State Religious Exemption Laws

State religious exemption laws permit people, churches, non-profit organizations, and sometimes corporations to seek exemptions from state laws that burden their religious beliefs. These laws have recently been used as a defense when businesses discriminate against or refuse service to LGBTQ customers and same-sex couples.

Report

The High Stakes in the Fulton Case: Undermining the Vital Role of Child Welfare Laws & Regulations in Protecting America’s Children

August 2020 - This report examines the potential outcomes of the Fulton v. City of Philadelphia case, which could create a license to discriminate throughout the child welfare system.

New Brief

Title IX, Religious Exemptions and Campus Climate: LGBT Protections in Higher Education

October 2018 - MAP's latest brief shows how the expansion of the ability of colleges and universities to claim a religious exemption to federal nondiscrimination laws can have a profoundly negative impact on LGBTQ students. These risks include threats of expulsion, increased disciplinary action simply for being LGBT, being denied participation in extracurricular activities, or forced into conversion therapy or counseling.

New Campaign

Top Corporations, Civil Rights Advocates and 1,200+ Businesses Join Open to All!

July 2018 - Some of the nation’s largest companies including Yelp and Levi Strauss & Co. joined with more than 1,200 small businesses, the cities of New York and Oakland, and a coalition of more than 190 organizations to unveil a new nationwide Open to All campaign. This initiative is focused on encouraging businesses large and small to join together, to declare that they are “open to all.” To learn more, visit www.OpenToAll.com

Report

CREATING A LICENSE TO DISCRIMINATE: 2018 FEDERAL CHILD WELFARE AMENDMENT

July 2018 – An amendment to a federal appropriations bill seeks to create a license to discriminate for child welfare providers, prioritizes the interests of providers over the welfare of children, reduces the likelihood that the most vulnerable children will find stability, and cuts more than $1.04 billion to state child welfare budgets. The more than 395,000 children in the child welfare system across the country will pay the price.

Video

Nursing Home Ad

June 2018 – Nursing Home is the latest in a series of ads illustrating the devastating harms many LGBT Americans face because have they no legal protection from discrimination. The new video features an older gay man and his family on the first day he moves into an assisted living facility. When the director of the facility learns the man is gay, he refuses to allow him to move in. No matter their age, and no matter who they love, no one should be turned away from a business or service provider simply because of who they are.

Report

Putting Children at Risk: How Efforts to Undermine Marriage Equality Harm Children

June 2018 – Authored by MAP and the Family Equality Council Putting Children at Risk: How Efforts to Undermine Marriage Equality Harm Children highlights how recent efforts to undermine marriage equality and protections for LGBT families pose a profound threat to the children in these families.

Video

Will We Go Back?

March 2018 - To mark the 50th anniversary of the Piggie Park decision, the Open to All campaign, MAP, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights released an ad, “Will We Go Back?,” that looks at how the Masterpiececase before the Supreme Court threatens this historic Civil Rights Ruling ruling.

Video

Open to All

March 2018 - "Open to All" is the latest in a series of ads produced by MAP as part of the Open to All public education campaign. The video features Christian small business owners—Howard and Pat—speaking about how nobody should be turned away from a business simply because of who they are.

Video

Funeral Home

February 2018 - Inspired by a real legal case, Funeral Home, the latest in a series of ads produced by MAP as part of the Open to All campaign, depicts a grieving widow who has just lost her spouse, and she and her family are turned away from a funeral home and refused burial services for her wife. The ad is meant to show how a loss in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case would open the door to much wider ranging forms of discrimination—including what the grieving widow in the ad faced.

Infographic

Tipping the Scales for Religious Exemptions to the Law

January 2018 - This infographic, produced as part of the Tipping the Scales: The Coordinated Attack on LGBT People, Women, Parents, Children, and Health Care report, outlines the mounting legislation and litigation across the country orchestrated to undermine nondiscrimination protections, comprehensive health care, and the regulations administering social and public services by inserting exemptions into the laws based on religious or moral beliefs.

Report

Dignity Denied: Religious Exemptions and LGBT Elder Services

December 2017 - Religious exemptions laws jeopardize the security and safety of LGBT older adults, who rely on many religiously affiliated organizations for services like congregate meals, skilled nursing, and health care.

Video

License to Discriminate

November 2017 - This video ad depicts ways in which a decision in favor of the bakery in this case could be used by those who seek to discriminate against LGBT people and others. The ad was produced by MAP as part of the Open to All campaign. Learn more at www.OpentoAll.com.

Video

Video: Understanding Masterpiece Cakeshop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

November 2017 - MAP Executive Director Ineke Mushovic discusses the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, and how a loss at the Supreme Court would not only open the door to much wider ranging forms of discrimination, but also to a wider array of people who could face such discrimination. This video was produced by MAP as part of the Open to All campaign. Learn more at www.OpentoAll.com.

Report

Tipping the Scales: The Coordinated Attack on LGBT People, Women, Parents, Children, and Health Care

 October 2017  - This report examines the alarming and widespread push to pass a variety of religious exemptions laws that would give businesses, government agencies and individuals a right to discriminate on religious or moral grounds. Legislation, executive orders, court cases, and agency guidance all push religious exemptions far beyond what the U.S. Constitution guarantees is the right to exercise religion freely.

Policy Brief

License to Discriminate: Texas House Bill 3859

April 2017 - Texas House Bill 3859 would allow child-placement agencies to to impose their beliefs on and discriminate against children and families while providing taxpayer-funded services. Agencies would be allowed to make placement decisions based on their religious beliefs, hurting the more than 28,000 children in the care of the state, including nearly 7,000 children awaiting adoption.

Guide

Talking About Religious Exemptions & Service Discrimination

March 2017 - Several states have proposed legislation to allow businesses to discriminate against customers who don’t conform to the specific religious beliefs that marriage should be restricted to a man and a woman, and that sex should be restricted to such marriages. Learn how to have effective conversations and broaden people's understanding of these laws and how they encourage discrimination against same-sex couples, unmarried couples and individuals, single parents, and others.

Guide

Talking About Religious Exemptions & Adoption Discrimination

March 2017 - Some states have introduced legislation to create broad religious exemptions allowing discrimination in taxpayer-funded adoption and foster care services. Such laws would allow adoption agencies and child services workers to make decisions for children in their care based on their religious beliefs, rather than the best interests of the child. Learn how to talk about these harmful laws which deprive children of loving homes.

Report

Talking About Religious Exemptions Laws

May 2016 - Read about approaches for effective conversations about harmful religious exemptions that threaten not only laws that protect LGBT people from discrimination, but also access to health care (including women's reproductive health), public safety, and more.