Repeal will 'clarify' Indiana law
'Religious freedom' at whose expense?
A conservative friend counsels patience; a conservative magazine calls for calm.
No way, LGBT people like me say, as Indiana's Republican Gov. Pence & Co. scramble to 'clarify' the so-called 'religious freedom' law he signed after hours last week.
LGBT people like me already see the law clearly. We see it for what it is: An act of political pandering that privileges sectarian animosities toward us.
Mind you, we're not talking about those animosities that are expressed from the pulpit, but those expressed in the public realm -- by individuals who want to inflict faith-based disdain for LGBT people by denying us service in, say, a place of business.
Indiana's law is a not-particularly-well-camouflaged vehicle to enable people who wish to circumscribe the free exercise of citizenship by LGBT people to do so under cover of a government sanction. The law puts us on notice: We must tread carefully, speak softly, and watch our backs.
Indiana has codified faith-based disapproval of our existence into law.
Pence, until recently one of the dozens of GOP pols eyeing a White House run, now deservedly finds himself and his state facing a hellacious firestorm.
Happily, concerns about money have penetrated into the Temple of Holiness otherwise known as the office of the governor of the state of Indiana. The prospect of economic boycotts, lost conventions, a corporate expansion in jeopardy and a Wilco concert cancelled are making Indiana Republicans eager to 'clarify' their ill-advised law.
Let us pray they see their way clear to repealing it.
--KEVIN RIORDAN