DNC Chair Says This 'Important Distinction' Needs to Be Drawn When It Comes to Religious Freedom

“Legitimate religious institutions” shouldn’t be forced to conduct same-sex marriages, but religious business owners also can’t “turn people away based on who they are,” Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told CBN News’ David Brody.

That’s the “important distinction” she said needs to be made in the religious freedom debate. Her comments come amid the controversial case in which the Christian owners of an Oregon bakery were ordered to pay $135,000 in damages after they refused to make a cake for a gay wedding.

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“You shouldn’t be able to turn people away based on who they are. It’s important that no matter who you are, who you love, what the color of your skin is, what your national origin is, we’re a nation of laws. Yes, the marriage equality decision is settled. Love is love and now everyone in America enjoys the protection of the United States Constitution when it comes to who they choose to marry legally,” Wasserman Schultz said. "That doesn’t mean that churches and religious institutions have to conduct same sex marriages and it doesn’t mean that religious institutions aren’t able to practice their own values.”

She added, “But, in this country, we do not allow people to discriminate and that’s I think is where the important distinction needs to be drawn.”

Wasserman Schultz later argued Americans have “made the distinction between protecting the first amendment rights for religious organizations or religiously affiliated organizations and being able to discriminate, broadly, simply because of one individual who owns a business and their own values and their being able to impose those values on either their employers or their customers.”

Watch the interview below:

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