Rick Santorum Supports Religious Freedom Laws, Relates Westboro Baptist Church To Gay Discrimination

While Rick Santorum supports religious freedom laws, he also believes it is possible to find a middle ground solution where all sides are satisfied. But what has some upset is how he listed the hypothetical scenario where the Westboro Baptist Church forces a gay baker to bake a wedding cake with the message “God hates f**s” written upon it.

In a related report by the Inquisitr, fellow Republican Bobby Jindal supports religious freedom laws, as well.

The way that Rick Santorum supports religious freedom laws attempts to be balanced since he believes a business should never discriminate against any customer no matter who they are.

“We aren’t for discrimination against any person. I think no business should discriminate against you because of who you are,” Santorum said.

The vast majority of today’s controversy is focused on the way Indiana’s religious freedom laws were written. While the new law prevents a business from discriminating by refusing service, the new law specifies that business owners and employees cannot be compelled to violate their religious beliefs or be sued if they refuse to take actions they feel “burdens” their religious freedom.

“Except as provided in subsection (b), a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. (b) A governmental entity may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if the governmental entity demonstrates that application of the burden to the person: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”

At issue is what it means to be “burdened,” and Santorum believes the religious freedom laws should provide protection for both those who support and oppose homosexuality.

“Tolerance is a two-way street,” Santorum said on CBS. “If you’re a print shop and you are a gay man, should you be forced to print ‘God Hates F**s’ for the Westboro Baptist Church because they hold those signs up? And this is really the case here: Should the government force you to do that? And that’s what these cases are all about. This is about the government coming in and saying, ‘No we’re gonna make you do this.’ And this is where I think we just need some space to say, ‘Let’s have some tolerance be a two-way street.'”

The reason Rick Santorum supports religious freedom laws is he believes the intention of the law is to not discriminate against gays, but to provide support for business owners who desire to abstain from certain activities based on ideology or religious beliefs.

“Obviously attitudes in this country change and when those attitudes change, we run into a whole bunch of new issues,” he said. “And so the question is how do we deal with that in respecting people on both sides of the issues? And I think that’s where you have to differentiate between discrimination against the person because of who they are and discrimination and… unwillingness to participate in actions because they’re inconsistent with your religious beliefs.”

What do you think of the way Rick Santorum supports religious freedom laws? Do you think a business should ever be allowed to refuse to help the Westboro Baptist Church?