As we gear up for the 2016 session of the Indiana General Assembly, IAHE Action thinks it would be a good time review our stance on Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Home education rights rest on two pillars: religious liberty and parental rights. We need both strong pillars to protect home education rights.
RFRA was signed into federal law in 1993, and there is no federal law giving special class to sexual orientation and gender identity. This law has been used ZERO times to allow for discrimination. [1] RFRA was demonized as allowing discrimination, but that was untrue. It is a shield and not a sword that protects ALL Hoosiers’ deeply held religious beliefs against government intrusion.
After Indiana’s RFRA was amended by SB 50, “IAHE asked Darren Jones, HSLDA staff attorney, if we are accurate in our understanding that homeschoolers can still benefit from Indiana’s RFRA as it pertains to the state trying to force us to teach evolution, sex education in a certain manner or by a certain age, or by attempting to ban home education, etc.? 
His response: “Yes, you are accurate in your understanding. Individual homeschoolers could still claim the protection of RFRA in a court proceeding if Indiana tried to impose religiously-objectionable curriculum requirements or ban home education. The amendment to RFRA only applies to “providers” in the context of services, facilities, etc., and so that amendment would not diminish an individual homeschooler’s right to raise RFRA in the situations you have mentioned.”” [2]
“The important conclusion is that no one should be forced by the government to violate his or her faith. This is what makes RFRA so important, but those that oppose religious freedom are at work using misinformation to stop this.” [3]
IAHE, Inc. had an excellent article about Indiana’s RFRA. Read it here.
[1] Indiana, Arkansas are Standing for Religious Freedom…Will you?
[2] Portion of article originally printed in the Indiana Association of Home Educators, The Informer Magazine, Fall 2015.
[3] Does RFRA Equal Discrimination? No It Prevents It
The Constitution does not remove the freedom of someone living here and disagreeing with it from packing his bags and leaving. One can even work to get it changed. He cannot be allowed to ignore it, though.