Via HuffPo:

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) spoke out this week about the Respect for Marriage Act, which he reintroduced in Congress last week with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.). If passed it would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), only one portion of which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.

The progressive New York Democrat also offered his thoughts on some conservatives’ increasingly vocal defense of “religious liberty” in what Nadler and others see as an attempt to blunt LGBT rights in the face of the success of marriage equality. Last week former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who is exploring a run for the presidency, said in response to marriage equality coming to his state, that the “the rule of law” and the couples “seeking greater legal protections” should be respected but that citizens also need to “show respect” for “those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty.” […]

Nadler addressed anti-LGBT advocates who are defending businesses such as bakeries and florists that don’t want to cater to gay and lesbian weddings because they say it infringes on their religious liberty. Nadler said that while this is new in the gay context, the argument is an old one that has been refuted by the American people and by the law.

“It’s no more religious liberty to say I have the right not to serve a gay couple in my restaurant or my wedding cake business than it would be to say I have the right not to serve a black couple or a Jewish couple or a Chinese couple,” he said. “Now, people used to say that in the 1950s and ’60s. That was one of the defenses: ‘I have a religious right to discriminate. My religion tells me whites and blacks shouldn’t mix.’ And we decided as a country that your religion is your religion and it cannot justify discriminating in public commerce.”