IUPUI hosting RFRA debate Wednesday
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – We are a few months removed from national headlines surrounding Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Wednesday, the debate over the controversial law continues, just days before it goes into effect.
The discussion is part of a series being put on by staff at the Robert H. McKinney School of Law. The series is called “Talking About Freedoms, Without Freaking Out” and Wednesday they’re debating the meaning of RFRA.
When Gov. Mike Pence signed it into law, there was uproar. Critics said the law legalized some discrimination against gays and lesbians. The governor said the law was modeled off of a 1993 federal law and did not allow discrimination. Eventually, the General Assembly passed what it called “clarifying language.”
Wednesday night, three panelists from three different political backgrounds say they’ll examine a hypothetical case where RFRA could be used as a legal defense. 24-Hour News 8 talked with the moderator, Robert Katz, a law professor at the IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law, about the debate.
“This was an enormous teaching moment that was lost and fortunately here we can arrange to have the teaching moment that was missed,” Katz said.
Any questions from the audience will be in written format. The discussion starts at 6 p.m. but if you can’t make it, it will be available after the event on podcast or streaming video.
You can read the agenda below.
24-Hour News 8 will have a one-hour special about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act at 6:30 p.m. on WISH-TV.