Increasingly, individuals and other entities claim their religious beliefs justify various actions, even when the actions impact others. This can be seen when some businesses claim a right to discriminate against LGBTQ people and others in the provision of goods and services and when health care providers impose religiously-based restrictions on the services and information offered to patients.
Will you oppose attempts to use religion as a license for discrimination prohibited by the Illinois Human Rights Act? If so, how? If no, why not?
ERIKA HAROLD:
DID NOT RESPOND.
BUBBA HARSY:
KWAME RAOUL:
The Illinois Human Rights Act, like the First Amendment, protects religious belief, but it does not give license to unlawful acts, including discrimination. In the General Assembly, I co-sponsored the expansion of the Human Rights Act to include sexual orientation as grounds upon which discrimination is prohibited. I also supported clarifications to the Healthcare Right of Conscience Act that protected a patient’s right to receive information about how to access care. A healthcare provider should not be forced to perform a procedure or provide a treatment that violates his or her conscience, but the exercise of this personal belief must never burden the rights of others. I will continue to advocate for legislation and policies that strike a similar balance, and I will defend in court a woman’s right to make informed healthcare choices against attempts to intrude on this personal decision-making, whether or not they are motivated by religious belief. I will also fight the Trump administration’s “gag rule” and other attempts to limit the information and care women can receive.