“There is a sense of alarm within the pro-family movement and among conservative Christians that there [are] growing threats to religious liberty, and many of those threats do relate to the agenda of the sexual revolutionaries,” said Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council.

Louise Melling, the deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the efforts are part of a misguided attempt to preserve an outdated social order. She noted that federal courts have repeatedly rejected biblical claims as a justification for discriminatory action. Cases rejected by the courts have included a Christian school that paid men more than women in the 1980s because men traditionally are the heads of their households, and a South Carolina barbecue chain that defended its refusal to serve black customers in the 1960s on religious grounds.

“At moments of social change, what you see is a resistance, and a desire to create or preserve certain pockets,” Melling said. “Historically we’ve rejected those claims, based on our understanding and deeply held beliefs about religious freedoms.”

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