Federalism and Indiana's law Religious Freedom - Gay rights

Indiana recently passed SB 101, or the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act", which allows individuals in Indiana to avoid civil rights legislation if they think that their own religious freedom is being "burdened". It has become controversial because it was passed by a Republican-dominated State Congress and has been seen by some, including the head of Apple, Tim Cook, as discriminatory against members of the LGBT community. Stopping discrimination against minority groups is one of the corner stones of Civil Rights legislation.

This is against the background of gay marriage being allowed (or at least not found to be unconstitutional) in the Supreme Court with US v Windsor in 2013, the Hobby Lobby decision of 2014 which allowed corporations to believe in God in order to avoid civil rights laws they don't like, and the rise in the Tea-Party wing of the Republican Party over recent years. 

Republican policy and the problem that this law in Indiana gives to the prospective Republican candidates is examined here in Rolling Stone Magazine (headline in a very aserbic piece: "GOP to LGBT, 'OMG you're still here?' ").

Both the Hobby Lobby case and US v Windsor should be on the list of cases any G and P student discusses in any essay on the Supreme Court and whether it is activist / conservative / liberal. 

The Indiana case is useful because it highlights the different traditions of states in a federal system, and also the policies of the Republican Party (good for Unit 3C). Good analysis here about the law in the Washington Post. There is clearly a clash here between Federal law and State law - one of the jobs the Supreme Court does is to referee arguments about such issues.

The Onion has a great headline which suggests the fix the law has caused for Republicans: "Indiana Governor Insists New Law Has Nothing To Do With Thing It Explicitly Intended To Do".