The uproar and backlash over religious freedom bills around the United States continues. Yesterday the Arkansas legislature passed its own version of the Religious Freedom bill, HB 1228. It has similarities and differences to the federal legislation passed in 1993 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Reporters Campbell Robertson and Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times write:

Both states’ laws allow for larger corporations, if they are substantially owned by members with strong religious convictions, to claim that a ruling or mandate violates their religious faith, something reserved for individuals or family businesses in other versions of the law. Both allow religious parties to go to court to head off a “likely” state action that they fear will impinge on their beliefs, even if it has not yet happened.

The Arkansas act contains another difference in wording, several legal experts said, that could make it harder for the government to override a claim of religious exemption. The state, according to the Arkansas bill, must show that a law or requirement that someone is challenging is “essential” to the furtherance of a compelling governmental interest, a word that is absent from the federal law and those in other states, including Indiana.

Arkansa Governor Asa Hutchinson as recently as last week, had declared that he would sign the bill into law as long as it is in similar form to what had already passed in 20 other states. However, this morning at a news conference, the Governor changed his mind.

According to Politico’s Nick Gass, Governor Hutchinson has asked the Arkansas State Legislature to make some changes to the legislation before he again considers signing it into law.

“I ask that changes be made to the legislation, and I’ve asked of the leaders in the General Assembly to recall the bill so that it can be amended,” the Republican governor said, so it more precisely mirrors the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
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“In the alternative,” he said, “it can simply have some language changes so that those accommodations and changes can be made.”
Hutchinson’s son signed the petition against the law.
“My son, Seth, signed the petition asking me, Dad, the governor, to veto this bill,” he said, remarking that it shows the generational divide on the issue.