Religious freedom and the government

In my home state, there's a controversial bill being heard this session that's prompted several protests.
It's Senate Bill 101 and it's called, the religious freedom restoration act.

This is a minor point but...what happened to the separation between church and state?

OK, on to the bill. It states that a business has the right to refuse service(s) to anyone, based on their religious beliefs, without having to worry about that person suing them if it's going to be a "substantial burden" to the business. For instance, remember the story about the bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for the gay couple? The bakery owner said that homosexuality was against their religion and they would not do anything that supported gay marriage including making them a wedding cake. So the customer got pissed off and sued them. Ultimately the bakery lost the case because they could not prove that it was a substantial burden to their faith, to bake the damn cake. Their business closed due to financial reasons. SB 101 says that if the suit is going to cause a substantial burden to the religious beliefs of the owner, then the customer doesn't get to sue them for discrimination and it's ok for the bakery to refuse service to them. But the government gets to decide what the "substantial burden" is. Rut roh.

In my opinion, this is a very dangerous bill. First of all, if you're in business to supply a product or service to the public, then that's what you better do. As long as it's not breaking a law-don't be silly now. By all means, you can still be a good Christian - or whatever-  and practice your faith in your life and home and church and still serve people who are different from you. A good Christian wouldn't judge someone based on their differences anyway, would they? Jesus didn't. Are you going to deny service to a member of the military because they may have killed someone in war? That's murder, isn't it? Oh, I see, that's different? Hmmmm. I happen to be pro-life but that's my choice. I certainly don't expect everyone to have the same notion and if you're pro-choice, that's ok, for you. But if you're pro-choice, can you be discriminated against under this bill? Yes, yes you can. 

Oh sure, I understand the intent of the bill. And if I were a business owner I would like to be able to refuse service to anyone I didn't like for any reason I felt like. But in reality, I would know that I won't get to do that, and if I did, then I would be willing to suffer the consequences - because that would be discrimination and that's against the law. Since there are already laws against discrimination, why do we need this one? It's a little like having a special law for hate crimes. Aren't ALL crimes committed in hate?

I think this bill just opens up a BIG ol' can o' worms!