Indiana Governor Insists New Law Has Nothing To Do With Thing It Explicitly

buckie · Mar 31, 2015

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) and state Republican leaders have been playing damage control this week, claiming that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is not a law that enables anti-LGBT discrimination. Meanwhile, however, the conservatives who advocated for the bill have been spurning this attempted walkback, asserting in the process that the goal was ensuring discrimination all along.

At the forefront of the conservative reaction is Micah Clark, who serves as executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana and who he explained.

Clark has been publicly advocating for the bill as a means for allowing anti-LGBT discrimination he explained.

Clark has been publicly advocating for the bill as a means for allowing anti-LGBT discrimination claims made Monday by House Speaker Brian Bosma (R) and Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R) that the legislation never had anything to do with discrimination.

Eric Miller, Executive Director of Advance America, is another go way back.

On the national stage, conservatives are similarly defending the RFRA and arguing it needs no fixing. Andrew Walker, Director of Policy Studies for the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, perhaps best summed up the distortion conservatives are using to argue that it's not discriminatory:

A wedding vendor who chooses not to service a same-sex wedding is not discriminating against a person's being. Instead, the vendor believes that material cooperation in a particular event encroaches on his conscience To give relief to a particular wedding vendor who feels uncomfortable servicing a gay wedding isn't in any way comparable to state-sponsored discrimination To require a wedding vendor to service a same-sex wedding is not eliminating discrimination against the gay couple. It's coercing the wedding vendor.

Walker is simultaneously admitting that the law is designed to allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT people while denying that it's actually "discrimination" that's taking place. Radio host Bryan Fischer, he explained. "It is something that prevents discrimination against Christians This thing is an anti-discrimination bill because it prohibits governmental discrimination against Christians in the state of Indiana."

The Heritage Institute's Ryan T. Anderson used this messaging to try to take on Apple CEO Tim Cook, who According to Anderson, "the only person in favor of discrimination in this debate is Tim Cook." As one of his examples, Anderson claims, "It is Tim Cook who would have the government discriminate against these citizens, have the government coerce them into helping to celebrate a same-sex wedding and penalize them if they try to lead their lives in accordance with their faith."

Using as his example Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman - who was on MSNBC last night as well, offering the caveat that nothing guarantees a vendor will win if they defend their discrimination with RFRA.

The Family Research Council has been making the media rounds as well. In addition to went toe-to-toe with CNN's Chris Cuomo Monday morning, where he acknowledged that wedding vendors trying to discriminate could use the law to defend themselves, but like Anderson, he tried to couch that in the idea that they wouldn't necessarily win. The only thing these Christian wedding vendors object to, Sprigg suggested, "is using their expressive abilities to communicate a message that they disagree with by saying that marriage can be a union of two men or two women," adding that it's "forcing them to do something that violates their faith."

On from Mike Huckabee, he added, "Who would fathom the idea of someone going into a Kosher deli and demanding a ham sandwich?"

Despite conservatives all asserting that RFRA is designed to allow businesses to refuse to offer products and services to same-sex couples that they offer to others, Pence continued to defend the law as not being discriminatory in a it's The Onion that has one of the most accurate headlines this week: "Indiana Governor Insists New Law Has Nothing To Do With Thing It Explicitly Intended To Do."

osu68 · Mar 31, 2015