BREAKING: Amendment to Indiana RFRA would include gender identity and sexual orientation

Republican legislators in Indiana have proposed changes to the state’s controversial new Religious Freedom Restoration Act that would bar discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, the Associated Press reports.
The amendment would also bar discrimination by private businesses based on race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or United States military service.
The changes come amidst increasing vocal opposition to the state’s new law, signed by Republican Gov. Mike Pence.
But not all groups are happy.
Eric Miller, CEO of Advance America, a group that backs the current bill, denounced the move in a statement.
“The Indiana General Assembly should not destroy in less than 36 hours the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that took over 65 days to go through the legislative process earlier this year,” Miller stated. “The proposed change to Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act is not a ‘fix’ but a hammer to destroy religious freedom for Hoosiers around the state – and it was all done behind closed doors!”
Miller added if the amendment passed, it would discriminate against “Christian bakers, florists and photographers [who] would no longer have the benefit of Indiana law to help protect them from being forced by the government to participate in a homosexual wedding.”
Others opposed it for different reasons.
“This bill reduces the threat but is far less than this situation requires. It recognizes there are problems, but does not fix it as LGBT Hoosiers and others urgently need. Now that there’s broad public understanding that gay and transgender people in much of Indiana are terribly vulnerable to arbitrary discrimination by businesses, refusal of housing, and being fired just for being who they are — and even Gov. Pence has agreed that that is wrong — that unacceptable situation requires a full solution,” said Jennifer C. Pizer, national director of Lambda Legal’s Law and Policy Project, in a statement.
Pizer was joined by the Human Rights Campaign and more than 70 CEOs of technology companies in calling for changing, or outright scrapping, the bill.
“Though this legislation is certainly a step back from the cliff, this fight is not over until every person in Indiana is fully equal under the law. At the federal level and in all 50 states, the time has come in this country for comprehensive legal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people that cannot be undermined,” HRC President Chad Griffin said in a statement.
“If anything can be learned from the battle for fairness and equality in Indiana, Arkansas, and other states, it’s that LGBT people deserve to be protected from unjust discrimination,” said Max Levchin, CEO of Affirm, and the organizer of the joint statement with other CEOs. “We are proud to stand on the side of liberty and justice and call on all legislatures to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in non-discrimination protections. This will ensure that no one faces discrimination while everyone preserves their right to live out their faith.”