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SALT LAKE CITY — U.S. Sen. Mike Lee said Vice President Kamala Harris presents a threat to people of faith because of her past efforts to reform religious freedom laws.
Lee, who served alongside Harris during her brief tenure in the Senate from 2017 to 2021, posted a thread to X on Saturday drawing attention to Harris' support of the Do No Harm Act.
"A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote against any religious institution, including schools, universities, hospitals, and charities," Lee, R-Utah, said. "This is the truth: Kamala Harris doesn't believe that religious institutions should be able to live according to their faith. Rather, they must bend the knee to the popular social justice movement of the day."
Harris reintroduced the Do No Harm Act in 2019. The bill would have overhauled America's most notable religious freedom law outside of the Constitution, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, limiting its scope and removing legal avenues for faith groups seeking faith-based exemptions to civil rights laws.
The bill would have also excluded various rules controlling health care coverage and government contracts and grants from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Supporters of the Do No Harm bill say it was meant to prevent discrimination by religious institutions on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation. Critics said it would "strip the heart out" of religious freedom law in the United States.
Lee called Harris a "severe threat" to "religious liberty — including for Latter-day Saints," and questioned why members of his faith would vote for Harris in the 2024 presidential election "in light of her efforts to gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act(.)"
What is Kamala Harris' stance on religious freedom?
Harris has a religiously diverse background. She learned about Hinduism from her Indian mother and Christianity from her Jamaican father. Harris belongs to the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco and is married to a Jewish man, second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
But Harris has been vocal about her support of legislation that makes religious freedom advocates nervous.
In addition to sponsoring the Do No Harm Act, which would limit the application of federal religious freedom protections, Harris co-sponsored the Equality Act, which would create new federal protections for gay and transgender people while also preventing people of faith from using the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to defend themselves against discrimination claims.
"That First Amendment guarantee (of religious freedom) should never be used to undermine other Americans' civil rights or subject them to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity," Harris said in a 2019 statement about the Do No Harm Act, according to NBC News.
Harris has also been accused by Catholic activist groups of applying a religious test to Catholic judicial nominees.
Both Harris and former President Donald Trump have made efforts to reach out to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Harris recently hired the Rev. Jen Butler, Presbyterian minister, to direct faith outreach for the Harris-Walz campaign.
Butler told Religious News Service she thinks Harris will appeal to people of faith because her of campaign theme of "Freedom."
At the Democratic National Convention in August, Harris' allies focused on interfaith relations and religious freedom, making the case that laws that bring Christian faith into the public square are more of a threat to religious liberty in America.
On Monday, Lee continued to condemn what he said was Harris' efforts to "gut religious freedom," in a post on X.
