House Minority Leader Rep. Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said, "This is not just an issue of one faith tradition; this is an issue that affects all of us.” (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Minnesota House Republicans and faith community members unsuccessfully sought to declare an urgency Monday to insert a religious exemption for gender identity in the state Human Rights Act.

“Will you show that ‘one Minnesota’ includes people of faith? Including the faith community that you don’t agree with?” asked Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, on the House floor.

There was no debate. House Majority Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, successfully tabled the issue on a 67-56 vote, saying there is plenty of time remaining in the session to discuss the issue.

After the floor session, however, Judiciary Finance Chair Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville, said it’s too late to bring up the bill this year. “It’s an argument to have, but we had the argument last year,” she said.

Last year, the Legislature added gender identity to the Minnesota Human Rights Act. The law, initially passed in 1993, bars discrimination in Minnesota based on race, religion, disability, national origin, sex, marital status, familial status, age, sexual orientation and gender identity in matters of employment, housing, education and public services.

Religious organizations are exempt from following the law when it comes to sexual orientation. But no exemption was added last year for gender identity. Becker-Finn said gender identity extends to everyone. “The protections aren’t just for queer folks. Everybody has a gender identity,” she said.

Becker-Finn used the example of an employer who wouldn’t hire those who identity as women as managers because of a belief that women aren’t up to the job.

She said the Republicans are raising the issue for attention. “They’re doing this because it gets them a lot of clicks and they get to give some fun speeches on the floor,” she said.

Before the floor session, Niska and House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth of Cold Spring said their attempts to exempt gender identity from the Human Rights Act had been rebuffed.

“It is our duty to safeguard the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, including the right of each Minnesotan to freely exercise their religion,” Demuth said. “This is not just an issue of one faith tradition; this is an issue that affects all of us.”

Niska offered the same amendment in committee earlier this month, but it was rejected on a party-line vote.

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Becker-Finn said she doesn’t see religious communities being harmed. “I don’t see that happening. Is that happening?” she asked.

Niska was asked the question of harm at his news conference. He said that there’s an open investigation by the state Department of Human Rights into a religious school but that he could not disclose details. He also rejected the notion that there has to be damage for the provision to be harmful to religious communities.

Jason Adkins, executive director and general counsel of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, said, “What we’re seeing here is an extraordinary intervention by the state” into religion. He said religious communities should have the ability to hire staff “in accordance with mission and beliefs.”

Adkins provided a list of organizations supporting restoration of the exemption in addition to his own, including the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Agudath Israel, Islamic Center of Minnesota, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Transform Minnesota, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Association of Christian Schools International, Islamic Association of North America, Minnesota Family Council, True North Legal and the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition.

Rev. Fred Hinz of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, who attended the news conference, said parishioners dislike the provision. He said the values of the faith community should be “given respect, even if we disagree about certain underlying issues.”

Niska noted that religious organizations do good throughout the state, feeding the poor and sheltering the homeless. He looked up to the leaders watching in the gallery, saying that “all they’re asking for is the ability to operate according to their mission.”