Down to the details: The particulars of Senate Bill 100 and LGBT

This is just the first in what could be a litany of related bills in the offing. And while business groups, including the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, support the concept of an LGBT rights bill, they’ve not endorsed any specific proposal.

The bill, filed by state Sen. Travis Holdman, R-Markle, was crafted with the help of the Senate Republican legal and policy staff.

It includes language that would expand the state’s civil rights law to protect people from being fired, denied housing or turned away from a business because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. But it also provides exemptions that Holdman says will protect the “religious liberty” of believers who worry their faith would be compromised by following the law.

Key points in the bill include:

• Religious and religious-affiliated organizations such as schools, hospitals and non-profits are exempt from the bill’s provisions related to sexual orientation and gender identity.

• State government agencies are barred from taking any “discriminatory action” against a religious organization for acting “in accordance with a religious belief or matters of conscience regarding marriage.”

• Those barred “discriminatory actions” include withholding taxpayer-funded grants or contracts to a faith-based organization that does not comply with the protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

• Businesses with fewer than four full-time employees are exempt. Those small businesses would be allowed to refuse to provide goods or services “for any solemnization, rehearsal, reception, celebration or social event for a marriage ceremony, renewal of marriage vows, or marriage anniversary.”

• It allows schools, businesses and other entities to maintain separate restrooms and locker rooms based on gender. Such rules would not constitute “a discriminatory practice or unlawful separation” under the proposed law.

• It requires the Indiana attorney general to defend in court any school accused of “gender identity” discrimination in restroom or locker room use or policies.

• It requires a person claiming “gender identity” protection to prove they’ve been under medical care related to their gender identity for at least 12 months. It also requires the person to assert that their gender identity is “sincerely held, part of the individual’s core identity, and not being asserted for an improper purpose.”

• The legislation prohibits local municipalities from passing LBGT protections that would extend beyond the state law, and it would nullify any current local civil rights laws that don’t contain the “religious liberty” exemptions in the state measure.

• It creates a $1,000 penalty for a “frivolous” complaint filed with the state civil rights commission, one “intended to harm the subject of the complaint.” If a complaint is found to have merit, it limits monetary damages to lost wages and benefits and bars any additional fee or fine.

• The legislation also states that the bill’s exemptions to sexual orientation and gender identity protection are to be “liberally construed.”

The 2016 legislative session starts Jan. 5 and, by law, must end no later than March 14.