Playing the Princess | Commonweal Magazine

A different look at issues surrounding the mRFRA.  What I find enlightening, "[t]he U.S. Catholic bishops could have used,,,."  Referring to, as the author puts it, the "Catholic teaching on 'cooperation with evil'."  So to this non-Catholic, non-believer the Church appears to have an out but chose to remain involved for what?

As one comment points out,

,,,thank you for calling for clear distinctions in the claims of undue burdens on free exercise of religion. A gay couple who tries to force the baker to CELEBRATE their marriage would pose an undue burden on their free exercise of religion. Providing goods and services is not. Sadly our bishops contribute to this lack of clarity with their histrionics about civil intrusions into private life (Never once noticing of course the Church's own intrusions in these spheres). [Ed. for spelling] 

One point not addressed, and lacking in other discussions concerning mRFRAs, religious belief is a choice. Opening a business that serves the public is voluntary.  Don't want to follow the laws, don't open a business.

The current approach to “substantial” burdens is no longer workable. In our increasingly pluralistic and interconnected society, we need to develop a consensus about what counts as a substantial burden on religiously motivated moral beliefs. That consensus need not draw on any particular theological vision; it only has to reflect what is reasonable to expect of people, given the degree to which they have agreed to participate in a pluralistic society.

Most people would agree that it is a substantial burden to be forced to be personally involved in an action they believe to be immoral. So no one should be forced to perform an abortion, or to directly administer contraception. Most people also recognize that forcing people to be considerably involved in actions that they think cause serious harm to vulnerable third parties is substantially burdensome. So, for example, forcing someone to prepare prisoners for execution—or patients for euthanasia—is not acceptable, even if such people are not made to administer the lethal dose.

At the same time, Americans need to acknowledge that many attenuated forms of connection to the wrongful acts of others should not rise to the level of a substantial burden for purposes of RFRA analysis. The terms of our social experiment mean that most of us will find ourselves a tangential part of an action or way of life that we don’t endorse. This is the price we all must pay for being involved in the commerce of a pluralistic society. That insight would rule out the RFRA claims of a Catholic innkeeper who refuses to rent a room to an unmarried heterosexual couple, just as it would in the case of a Muslim cab driver who declines to transport a passenger carrying alcohol. The same would go for an Evangelical baker who won’t make a cake for a same-sex wedding—the example most cited by supporters of the Indiana bill. In all three cases, the burdens on free exercise are not objectively substantial enough to trigger the cumbersome legal machinery of RFRA.

Such claimants might respond that their actions put them in a position of appearing to endorse fornication, alcohol consumption, or same-sex marriage, respectively. But that doesn’t make sense, because no sensible person understands the transactions that merchants make in the public marketplace as signaling their endorsement of the activities of their customers. And one who makes rooms generally available for rent doesn’t in any way sanction the specific activity that guests engage in behind closed doors.

Playing the Princess | Commonweal Magazine