TALLAHASSEE–Rep. Julio Gonzalez, an orthopaedic surgeon practicing in Venice, Florida, has sponsored his first bill of the 2016 legislation session in Tallahassee aimed at giving immunity to businesses that want to deny services on grounds of “religious freedom,” including private child-placement agencies.

Specifically, the bill amends the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1998” to stipulate that any entity owned by a religious institution is “not required to produce, create, or deliver a product or service that would be contrary to the religious or moral convictions or policies” of the entity, with child-placing agencies specifically enumerated.

According to Equality Florida’s executive director Nadine Smith, “This extreme bill doesn’t affirm existing law; it goes much further than that. In addition to churches, it would allow individuals, for-profit businesses, health care providers, non-profit adoption agencies and others to discriminate against anyone they want, for personal reasons.

“Legal experts say this bill is even worse than the disastrous Indiana bill that sparked a nationwide backlash. Indiana’s governor called a hasty special session to repeal that costly mistake.

“Not only would passing this bill tell the rest of the country that Florida is a mean-spirited, discriminatory state. It would also allow a healthcare provider to deny reproductive and contraceptive services to women; retailers to refuse service to LGBT people; a day care to refuse admittance of a child with LGBT parents, and many other outcomes we believe most people would find deeply unfair.”

So far, Gonzalez’s new bill, HB 401, does not have a Senate companion bill.