State Rep. Sandy Salmon (R-Janesville) has some other priorities she’d like to see addressed in 2020. One is a religious liberty bill.
In addition to the religious freedom and restoration bill she has out there from last year, she’s also working on a bill that says the government cannot discriminate against people in professional licensure based on their beliefs about marriage, gender identity and life.
“Right now, we have the Iowa Supreme Court trying to decide whether or not to infringe on attorneys’ rights to First Amendment protection,” she said. “They have proposed a rule that says an attorney cannot engage in conduct that they know or should know would be discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
“That all sounds good, but the way these kinds of things will be interpreted would be to not allow them to hold an opposing view that opposes the government-held view on sexual orthodoxy. If someone espoused Christian sexual ethics regarding sexual orientation and gender identity and was talking about it, if an attorney is talking about that and advocating for the Christian viewpoint, under this rule that’s being proposed by the Iowa Supreme Court, they could be censured in their professional licensing as an attorney. That is unacceptable to me.”
