Mike Pence is either lying or deluded about India...

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MARCH 31 2015 1:26 PM

Mike Pence Is Either Lying or

Deluded About Indianas
Religious Freedom Law
By Mark Joseph Stern

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence at Tuesday's press conference.

Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images

On Tuesday, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence delivered a rambling, irate press conference
at which he professed to support a new bill that would clarify his states new
religious liberty law. That measure, of course, has come under severe criticism for
potentially granting businesses a license to discriminate against gays and lesbians
based on their owners religious prejudices. Following several days of unrelenting,
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high-prole censure, Pence has decided it wouldnt hurt to strip the law03/31/2015
of its

Mikediscriminatory
Pence is either lying
or deluded
India...
power.
At theabout
same
time,

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/03/31/...
however,
he continues to insist that the law,
as originally passed, does nothing to permit discrimination and merely mirrors similar

measures passed by 19 other states and the federal government.

MARK JOSEPH STERN

Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for

Slate. He c overs sc ienc e, the law,
and LGBTQ issue s.

If Pence is not intentionally lying, he is incredibly

stupid. His claims are Tuesday were veriably
untrue, nothing more than a stream of blatant
falsehoods. The debate over Indianas religious
freedom law isnt a matter of opinion; it is a
question of truth versus ction. And Pence made
clear on Tuesday that he has chosen ction.

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Heres the easily substantiated
truth behind the bill. Its supporters explicitly
intended it to legalize discrimination against gay peopleespecially gay couples,
who, lately, have faced discrimination from orists, bakers, and photographers who
refuse to serve them. To ensure the law achieved this goal, its drafter inserted two
monumentally important provisions, neither of which is found in the federal
religious freedom law signed by President Bill Clinton. First, the bill explicitly permits
for-prot businesses to exercise their religious beliefs, rather than limiting its eects to
regular human beings. Second, the bill protects businesses against private lawsuits in
addition to state suits.

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These

03/31/2015 10:09 PM
provisions, taken together, convert the law from a modest civil liberties
measure to an altogether dierent beast. Although the Supreme Court has held that

Mikethe
Pence
is either
lying or deluded
aboutapplies
India...
federal
religious
liberty law

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/03/31/...
to some corporations,
the statute itself applies
only to peopleand, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointed out in dissent, extending

it to for-prot companies strains the meaning of the text. Theres no such issue with
the Indiana law, though: This measure was designed to apply to businesses, like orists
who dislike gay people, as a straightforward reading of its text makes clear.
But its really the next provision that gives the Indiana law its startling and unique
breadth. The federal religious freedom law was designed to protect individuals from
government overreach, like a state law barring ritual drug use by American Indians.
Indianas law, on the other hand, lets people (and businesses) cite their religious
freedom as a defense in private lawsuits, even when theyre accused of violating a civil
rights law. In practice, that means a baker who is required by a nondiscrimination
ordinance to serve all customers may cite her religious opposition to homosexuality in
order to refuse service to a gay couple. Here, then, is the true license to discriminate: A
secular baker is still bound by the law; a Christian baker has a special religious right to
kick out customers she dislikes due to her religion.
For some reasonignorance? idiocy?the
Top Comment
right-wing media has lately protested the notion
that Indianas law permits anti-gay discrimination.
He's lying. He gambled. He lost
This trend is quite strange, since, in the same
big time. He's backpedaling. I'd
breath, these writers often argue that such laws
honestly be kind of weirded out if
he didn't lie here. Lying is just the
are necessary to protect religious people from
best way to go for everyone
having to serve gays. Conservatives should really
involved in this really bad
just pick a lane. We can, and should, argue about
decision. More...
-Benton Love
whether for-prot businesses deserve a religious
right to refuse service to gays. But its pointless to
656 Comments
Join In
waste time arguing about whether Indianas law
does that. Of course it does; that was the point. And Pences mendacity only makes
the entire debacle more embarrassing for him and his media allies.
Read more of Slates coverage of the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
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