California Gov. Brown vetoes bill prohibiting faith-based codes of conduct

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Elissa Graves regarding California Gov. Jerry Brown’s veto Monday of AB 569, a bill that would have prohibited churches, religious colleges, religious non-profit organizations, and pro-life pregnancy care centers from having faith-based codes of conduct with regard to abortion and sexual behavior:

“The government should not and cannot tell churches, Christian colleges, pro-life pregnancy care centers, and other religious groups that they can’t live out their beliefs within their own organizations. Gov. Brown was right to veto this immensely unconstitutional bill, which would have been an unprecedented overreach on the part of the state of California. The First Amendment doesn’t allow the state to order churches and other faith-based groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. They have the freedom to live according to their faith and to require those who work for them to do the same.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.