Gay rights and religious liberty: Can Americans have both?

April 16, 2015, Christian Science Monitor

“I don’t think it is right to view RFRAs in light of gay rights specifically, because RFRA has always protected religious minority groups,” says Eric Rassbach, a lawyer at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in Washington.

He says RFRAs have helped protect a Santeria priest seeking an exemption from a local ordinance outlawing goat sacrifices; it is being invoked to help native Americans who need an exemption from federal law to possess eagle feathers. The law has been used to uphold the right of a Sikh accountant to pass through security at a federal building in possession of her religious “kirpan,” a small dull dagger that is as symbolic to Sikhs as the cross is to Christians.