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Amends the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act to include explicit protections for religious exercise, shielding individuals, businesses, and faith-based organizations from coercive enforcement actions that would compel them to violate sincerely held beliefs.
OUR POSITIONPennsylvania's Human Relations Act governs how the state responds to discrimination complaints in employment, housing, and public accommodation. As written and enforced, it has created growing tension with the free exercise rights of people of faith. HB2103 addresses that tension directly by amending the Act to include protections for religious exercise, giving courts and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission clear statutory guidance when religious liberty claims are at stake.
The need for this protection is not theoretical. Across the country, state anti-discrimination frameworks have been used to pursue legal action against bakers, photographers, florists, adoption agencies, and religious employers whose practices reflect sincere theological convictions. Pennsylvania believers face the same exposure. Without an explicit religious exercise carve-out, the Act's enforcement machinery can be turned against people of faith simply for operating their lives and livelihoods in accordance with their beliefs.
From a biblical standpoint, the freedom to live, work, and serve according to one's faith is not a privilege to be rationed by the government but a God-given liberty that civil authority exists to protect. The American Council affirms that the church and individual believers must be free to act on their convictions without facing state coercion. HB2103 reflects that principle by ensuring the Human Relations Act cannot be used as a tool to punish religious exercise.
The bill is appropriately targeted. It does not eliminate anti-discrimination enforcement or exempt bad actors seeking religious cover for genuine wrongdoing. It establishes a protection for sincere religious exercise within an existing regulatory structure, which is a measured and legally grounded approach. That same narrowness means it is an amendment to existing law rather than a comprehensive religious freedom statute, but the protection it offers is real and the threat it responds to is immediate.
HB2103 has passed one chamber of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. The American Council urges its members to contact their state senators and encourage passage of this legislation. Protecting the freedom of faith communities to live and serve according to their convictions is a core responsibility of just governance, and this bill moves Pennsylvania in that direction.