Mike Pence STILL ISN'T Telling the TRUTH

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"...Mike Pence announced today he’s finally fixing Indiana’s anti-gay RFRA law, but took the time to rail against “reckless reporting.” The reporting is not the problem. Here's the truth: Only one other state has a law like this..."

Why Indiana?

With the backlash in full effect—with cancellations of gamer conventions, Wilco concerts, office expansions—even Indiana Governor Mike Pence backtracked today, saying that he will accept the kind of legislative “fix” he had earlier rejected. To hear Gov. Pence tell it, his state is being unfairly singled out. In fact, he protested today, his Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is no different from the ones President Clinton and then-State-Senator Obama supported in the past. He reiterated that today in his press conference, saying it was no different than the federal bill the ACLU applauded “when President Clinton signed it in 1993.” That is incorrect—and Gov. Pence knows it. Pence either doesn’t know the law—which is unlikely—or he is purposefully not telling the truth about it. And he kept up that lie today. In fact, Indiana is different, for four specific reasons: Hobby Lobby, antidiscrimination, business, and the far-right echo chamber.

1. Hobby Lobby

First and most importantly, Gov. Pence is being knowingly disingenuous when he compares Indiana’s RFRA to others. When Bill Clinton signed the federal RFRA in 1993, it passed Congress nearly unanimously. That’s because it was meant as a shield protecting minority religions from government interference. The typical cases were Native Americans using peyote, or churches seeking zoning variances—religious acts that didn’t really affect anyone else.

Hobby Lobby changed that. Last year, for the first time, the Supreme Court said RFRA was a sword, as well as a shield, enabling a corporation to deny insurance coverage to its employees. Social conservatives cheered.

Since Hobby Lobby, the only states that have passed RFRAs are Mississippi—not exactly a bastion of tolerance, commerce, and industry—and Indiana. Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, you may recall, vetoed her state’s RFRA after the NFL, among others, rebelled. Georgia and Oklahoma have shelved theirs, and Texas is likely to follow.

Pence’s RFRA is not Clinton’s RFRA. Hobby Lobby changed the game.

Now, does Gov. Pence know this? Of course he does. The law’s own supporters have used the same examples for years: the baker who shouldn’t have to bake a cake for a gay wedding, the photographer, the florist. To most of us, that looks like discrimination—putting a “No Gays Allowed” sign up on your storefront window.

And those are the best cases. RFRAs allow hospitals not to honor same-sex visitation rights, and doctors not to treat the children of lesbians. These are actual cases.

Is Pence just lying, then? Well, not quite, because of ….




2. The Right-Wing Echo Chamber

No matter how many times Gov. Pence says this isn’t about gays and isn’t about discrimination, the people standing behind him when he signed it are a who’s-who of anti-gay social conservatives. (This meme makes it pretty clear.)

Within that far-right echo chamber, RFRA really is about religious freedom. When I started working on this issue two years ago, I thought the “religious freedom” line was just rhetoric to disguise the culture war.

Since then, though, I’ve met and debated these people, and I’ve watched their propaganda. They appear to sincerely believe that Christians are being persecuted, and that LGBT people owe them an “olive branch” in the form of religious exemptions.

That echo chamber has been so well-funded, and is so insular, that it’s lost sight of the American mainstream, which sees discrimination as discrimination, even if there’s a religious reason for it. That’s left Republicans across the country exposed. Their base is telling them RFRAs are about religious freedom, and then they’re shocked when the mainstream sees it differently. Several have privately expressed a sense of betrayal.

The fact is, the echo chamber is far from the mainstream. And when RFRAs are out in the open, they’re failing. And the reason for that is—



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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/31/mike-pence-still-isn-t-telling-the-truth-why-indiana-s-anti-gay-religious-freedom-law-is-different-than-the-other-ones.html

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1. Connecticut Gov. Malloy: ‘Mike Pence KNEW What He Was Doing’

But he did it anyway.


If we stand idly by while states legalize bigotry, we are responsible for allowing it to happen. Yesterday, Connecticut took action to stop discrimination against any of our citizens. I signed my 45th , which made our state the first in the nation to ban state-funded travel to Indiana. Uproar has occurred both in and out of the Hoosier State for good reason. The religious freedom law Republican Governor Mike Pence signed last week — deliberately lacking protections against discrimination for the LGBTQ community — will allow an entire group of citizens to be treated as second class.


The law is disturbing, disgraceful, and outright discriminatory. Governor Mike Pence knew what he was doing. He knew this legislation would allow discrimination against American citizens. He signed it anyway. Codifying discrimination in our laws should be something we read about in American history, not on the front pages of today’s American newspapers and magazines. Fortunately, Connecticut has been joined by many elected officials, business leaders, and organizations across the nation who are standing up against this discriminatory law.


No person should be denied service at a lunch counter because of who they love. A landlord should not be able to deny housing to a person based on his or her sexual preference. No state, as a matter of public policy, should turn back the clock on progress by, in effect, legalizing and relitigating the same types of discriminatory laws and debates that took America centuries to overcome.


http://time.com/3765380/connecticut-gov-malloy-mike-pence-knew-what-he-was-doing/

[bigdarryl]

2. Pence is a idiot for signing this bill in the first place

[Thinkingabout]

3. Since Hobby Lobby used this to prevent their employees from getting birth control, then

this is a bad law. Our freedoms to make our choices, let the religious right make the decisions forus.