Representative Nicole Clowney

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (52:35)

nobody. This bill hurts real Arkansans. If it helped somebody, we would have heard from them today, and we didn't, I encourage a no vote. Thank

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (51:59)

as a committee? Is it to vote out legislation that a special interest group is pushing when we have heard zero actual harm? Or is it to protect people who need our help? We heard from nine such people today that this bill is just further torture and codification of our stance that certain Arkansans are less than. We know that this bill will increase, not diminish, religious persecution. We heard it unanimously at the end of the table today. This bill helps

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (51:23)

about religious freedom. We did not hear from one person who is for this bill who is currently being persecuted. Not one. I'm going to say this not because I am saying it with any judgment but because I think it needs to be on public record and it's hard if you're not in the room to know it. We know where this bill came from. It came from a special interest group who provided the legislation and who has been lobbying members on the bill. That needs to be known. What is our job

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (50:46)

particular bill is that I just don't under I don't believe that we have gotten an answer to the question who is being persecuted our job is to solve problems we heard today from nine people nine people who I believe this morning we heard that there were nine people signed up so nine people who stayed all day until we were ready to hear this bill to talk about the very real harm not only that they currently experience but the further harm that they would experience were this bill to become law. What we didn't hear was from one person. We heard a lot of abstract ideas

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (50:25)

discussion. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I just kind of want to start what I want to say here with something that one of the witnesses said today, Ms. Knoll, who I know and whose sweet daughter I love very much. She said, religious freedom is not under attack. I think the thing that really just has me concerned about this

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (15:12)

Based on your testimony, would you feel, as if you missed out, if you were discriminated against by the state because you did not have, because you have a different opinion of biological sex than perhaps the one that is stated in this bill, would you feel that you would be compelled to speak other than you truly believe in order to

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (14:51)

Clowney, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for coming and testifying and for waiting all day to do so. It means a lot, and you did a great job. Quick question. We just heard about, you know, I had some questions about the definition of belief about biological sex. I think you just heard that exchange, and we were told that nothing in this bill compels any speech.

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (8:09)

somebody that has a very specific and, yes, not unanimous opinion on what male or man or female or woman means. And so I just don't understand the opposition to include the word regarding rather than that. I just haven't heard an answer to that particular question. Why not the word regarding instead of that? Or regarding

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (7:38)

while not protecting opposing viewpoints. We cannot, under the First Amendment, do that. So I guess I just, and if we could, then I don't understand why A reads the way that it does, which it does seem to protect no matter one's opinion on the two individuals who may enter into marriage. So maybe I'm not phrasing my question clearly, but it is very clear that B does only protect

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (7:20)

recognized for another follow-up? Thank you. I just don't know what tenet of constitutional law you can point to to say it's perfectly acceptable to discriminate against a contentious issue. It's just it's not true that you can choose one viewpoint to protect

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (5:57)

And again, I would just ask, why doesn't it say whether instead of that?

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (5:22)

refers to that immutable biological sex. That is not settled, and by putting it in code this way, we are preferencing, we are protecting that viewpoint while not protecting the opposing viewpoint, a different viewpoint. The way that I read it, I agree with you that this protects whatever your position on marriage is, at least in this section. But I don't believe that that's true about the positions that you're talking about in subsection B.

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (5:12)

Follow up? But what isn't scientifically settled is that male or man or female or woman

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (4:00)

or man or female or woman refers to? Do you know what I'm doing? I'm sorry, I may not be

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (3:47)

This seems to be pretty blatantly viewpoint discrimination. Can you just explain to me why the language isn't the same as in the previous sentence? In other words, why doesn't it say regarding whether male

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (3:21)

keep going on that section? So you read the bit about marriage, but the next line says that male or man or female or woman refers exclusively to a person's immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at the time of birth. That actually is not viewpoint neutral, and as you know, you're both experts at constitutional law, you know that we cannot prioritize, you know, favor one viewpoint over another.

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (3:17)

question. Thank you, Madam Chair. Following up on Representative McCullough's question, can we

Meeting — April 1, 2025 (1:25:52)

Representative Underwood, so people who may ultimately be denied TANF benefits will still be required to engage in this work requirement, is that correct? They would have

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (1:37:11)

And so my concern is why is that person, that person's choosing to do a job, which is issuing marriage licenses. Why is protecting that right to choose that job that they could choose not to do if they have an issue with who they're going to be issuing licenses to, Why is that more important than the Arkansans' constitutional right to be married? Because I'm not sure that we're guaranteeing it in this

Judiciary Committee (House) — April 1, 2025 (1:36:35)

And let me just express why that's my concern. While I think it's great to make sure that the government is not discriminating against people based on religious beliefs, my concern is that what we're actually doing with this law is empowering the government to discriminate against people based on their religious beliefs. Because you're giving a government employee, a state employee, the right in law. We are codifying their right to say, no, we do not want to perform this marriage. And we don't, at least as I'm reading this, have a clear replacement if that person says no.