Indiana Gov. Mike Pence seems sincerely surprised that so many people think he’s a terrible person for signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law. At the same time, he appears to be kind of lost at sea because he thought acting like an intolerant anti-gay religious fundamentalist would be popular. This is probably partly because Governor Pence is a genuine jerk, but it’s also because he runs in almost exclusively right-wing circles and consumes almost exclusively right-wing media.
So, he’s kind of an asshole and he surrounds himself with assholes and he gets all his information and most of his feedback from assholes. It’s like he’s living in a giant colon.
And then suddenly he’s forced to look outside into the light and there’s a whole world outside this colon that doesn’t approve of his values or seem at all inclined to reward him for his intolerance.
So, now he’s scrambling to repair the damage he’s caused his state but he doesn’t know how to go about it because he’s in shock and cannot believe the situation he’s created for himself.
Gov. Mike Pence, scorched by a fast-spreading political firestorm, told The Star on Saturday that he will support the introduction of legislation to “clarify” that Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not promote discrimination against gays and lesbians.
“I support religious liberty, and I support this law,” Pence said in an exclusive interview. “But we are in discussions with legislative leaders this weekend to see if there’s a way to clarify the intent of the law.”
The governor, although not ready to provide details on what the new bill will say, said he expects the legislation to be introduced into the General Assembly this coming week.
Asked if that legislation might include making gay and lesbian Hoosiers a protected legal class, Pence said, “That’s not on my agenda.”
See, he understands that he has a problem, but it’s not on his agenda to make clear that the law he wants to clarify won’t do what everyone is concerned that it will do. If he doesn’t make it obvious that it’s not okay to discriminate against gays and lesbians, then the clarification won’t do anything, and if he still supports the law then repeal isn’t in the cards.
In any case, he’s still being defensive.
He adamantly insisted that RFRA will not open the door to state-sanctioned discrimination against gays and lesbians…
…“I just can’t account for the hostility that’s been directed at our state,” he said. “I’ve been taken aback by the mischaracterizations from outside the state of Indiana about what is in this bill.”
In defense of the legislation, he noted that 19 other states and the federal government have adopted RFRA laws similar to Indiana’s. And he pointed out that President Barack Obama voted for Illinois’ version of RFRA as a state senator.
The governor also criticized the news media’s coverage of the legislation. “Despite the irresponsible headlines that have appeared in the national media, this law is not about discrimination,” he said. “If it was, I would have vetoed it.”
Basically no one who isn’t an anti-gay bigot agrees with Mike Pence’s interpretation of his law. He’s even hemorrhaging support from local churches.
The Disciples of Christ church sent a letter to Pence this week threatening to cancel its 2017 convention in Indianapolis.
“Our perspective is that hate and bigotry wrapped in religious freedom is still hate and bigotry,” Todd Adams, the associate general minister and vice president of the Indianapolis-based denomination, told The Indianapolis Star. Adams said the Disciples of Christ would instead seek a host city that is “hospitable and welcome to all of our attendees.”
It’s kind of amazing just how much of an ass-kicking Pence is taking, but it’s not like he wasn’t warned. He just didn’t listen.
Sadly, this is spreading like cancer:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/03/27/19-states-that-have-religious-freedom-laws
-like-indianas-that-no-one-is-boycotting/
This is Lance’s only worthwhile point but the difference here is we have reached a critical mass and this law was well publicized. Am have s rest assured pence, we want those other laws repealed too.
Whoa, epic tablet fail.
○ History of RFRAs by Prof. Marci A. Hamilton
The signed RFRA bill Indiana – An act to amend the Indiana Code concerning civil procedure SB 101
Not that you hired me to be your editor but the metaphor is a bit inept. A colon is not filled with assholes, it just has one at the end. Perhaps a better analogy would be a sausage machine, just before the grinding operation commences.
you’re nitpicking. I was going for as many mixed ass metaphors as possible.
Well, I thank you for this particular colonoscopy. It has revealed some cancerous polyps.
It would work fine if you called him a piece of shit.
Even most of the right wingers that I know, feel that if you are in business you have to conform to business norms. Most hate the Illinois blue law forbidding automobile sales on Sunday, originally billed as religious freedom for car salesmen. Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby have the right to close on Sunday but they don’t have the right to insist that their competitors do the same. You have the right to say “No shoes, No shirt, No service”, but you don’t have the right to say, “No white skin, no service” or “Turban, no service”.
In High School, our Economics/Government teacher, Mr. Roche, showed us his scrapbook including a 1930’s Chicago newspaper want ad stating in large letters, “No Irish need apply”. We have comae a long way, although arguably not far enough. These “Christians” would take us back to Reformation religious persecution.
Another thought: Does this mean that an Indiana Muslim business owner has the right to beat “immodest” female customers or even just to refuse service to unaccompanied women? Can they object to the public schools teaching girls how to read?
Melissa McEwan has a different take on boycotting Indiana. I’m not sure how I feel personally. I mean, clearly the electoral process has failed to bring people who would oppose such a measure, so outside pressure is all that’s left. But then I understand the LBGT community in the area feels abandoned by such a boycott having no other support. Anyone have thoughts on this and Melissa’s take?
Yes. When I was a member of the American Physical Society, I deeply resented their abandonment of their traditional annual convention in Illinois based on the legislature’s refusal to sign the equal rights Amendment. I felt it was unjust punishment of the mid-west members for something they had no control over. Eventually I dropped my membership with as i recall it’s $600 annual dues, being tired of being a second class member. Similarly, not everyone in Indiana supports these yahoos. There is a substantial Democratic base and probably many Republicans oppose this too.
Let’s see if I have this right.
Well, you and Phyllis Schafly (an IL resident btw) really showed all those women and gays that they could just forget about not being second class citizens didn’t you?
I was punished for something over which I had no control so I resigned, not because the APS supported the ERA which I had no objection to. And what do gays have to do with it? Some, perhaps many, great scientists were/are gay.
Punished? Perhaps for you, a short-term inconvenience or loss of an annual event that you enjoyed to attempt to right an injustice for many. Not even close to the inconvenience that white and black kids experienced in being bused to different schools to further racial desegregation and harmony. And their parents made the same bloody arguments that they weren’t responsible for defacto-segregation; so, why were they “punished?”
It doesn’t count for anyone to say that they’re not opposed to legislation that reduces discrimination if they object should it personally impact them in minor ways. Like the guys that didn’t object to women or minorities being hired into their profession except when it meant that an equally deserving woman or minority was promoted over them.
Had the ERA been ratified, we wouldn’t see all this RFRA crap because it would clearly be unconstitutional.
It didn’t right anything. It just hurt people with no control over events. It was just lashing out at members who lived in the state without any power over the politicians.
These conventions were important to our professional development.
Were the conventions cancelled or relocated out of Il?
As a non-union, white collar worker that is also supportive of unionized labor, I have never crossed a picket line. Didn’t matter how much that picket line inconvenienced me. Didn’t matter that a product or service I usually consumed wasn’t available elsewhere and in the short-term had to do without it. Not once has it ever occurred to me that I was being “punished.”
If most of us don’t do our part for the greater good in our seemingly small and puny ways, the “greater good” is easily defeated.
You boast of flipping off your membership in an organization that was on the right side of the ERA. You should have been ashamed then and triply ashamed today.
They hurt me WHO WAS NOT RESPONSIBLE. Do you get that? I and every physicist in Chicago was hurt for something that the politicians in Springfield did.
And this is NOTHING like crossing a picket line. You choose whether or not to cross. There was NO choice here.
every physicist in Chicago was hurt for something that the politicians in Springfield did.
And physicists in Chicago have nothing to do with whatever politicians in Springfield do?
In 1972 Il neighbors Iowa and WI ratified it along with 20 other states that also have state government seats not located in the major city population areas and areas in the states that are very conservative. (Do note that the CA legislature waited until after the ’72 elections before completing the task. Possibly emboldened by voters rejecting another Republican to replace the outgoing Reagan and went with Pat Brown’s son.) Very conservative IN was slow and didn’t get it done until 1977.
But IL — land of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson — joined the confederacy on this one and stuck with them for years.
Oops — the ERA was ratified in CA more than two years before Reagan left office as governor. Can’t revise some historical facts even if I want to.
How much, if any, the ’72 election figured into when the CA legislature ratified the amendment doesn’t seem to be an important enough historical fact for me to bother looking into. Although it is interesting that Reagan, like Nixon, supported it in ’72. He flipped on that in ’76 during his run for the WH.
Shouldn’t the spotlight and heat also be turned on and up all those in the IN legislature that passed this POS?
Pence has made the same mistake Ultrasound McDonnell made in Virginia. Legislating adult sexual activities is tricky. Pence may have ruined his chance at VP.
The governor seems to have gone into hiding today.
From Twitter:
… they just want the right to treat an entire group of people differently.
Seriously, every time I think I’ve got my head around this ability to redefine reality, another ludicrous example comes along.
Surely this law is doomed for oblivion, there is no clairvoyance that can determine by sight or speech at the entry door who is gay.
In the mid-century, demonstrators sat-in. Brave souls these young African Americans were then before.
It is legal to enter a business. The law does not state a LGBT individual is not allowed to enter an establishment that has posted such vile a declaration: only that the business can choose to not serve. A sit-in is such a stunning illumination of the stupidity of these discriminatory practices, clogging the flow of paying customers.
The responsibility is not on the customer to self-select not to patronize an establishment. In this age of instantaneous citizen reporting, the images of business owners trying to convince customers to leave, or forcibly remove them as in days past, would be stunning effective.
I’ve never thought of Indiana as a giant colon before. I’ve gotten that thing at the doctor’s office where they put that camera up your butt to look at your colon. It’s pink in there. All the crap flows through it.