The White House disputed Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s assertion Tuesday that a religious freedom law he signed last week is similar to a federal law passed during the Clinton administration in 1993.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Pence is in “damage-control mode” and has now agreed to fix the law to clarify that it’s not intended to justify discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Earnest also argued that Pence tried to “falsely suggest” that the law passed in Indiana is the same as the federal law.
That 1993 federal law, Earnest said, was aimed at protecting the freedom of religious minorities from federal intrusion.
The Indiana law, he argued, is much broader because it applies to corporations, not just individuals and religious groups.
“The law in Indiana applies to private transactions as well and that’s why we’ve seen such a bipartisan political outcry against the law,” Earnest said, earlier noting that it “flies in the face of the kind of values that people across the country strongly support.”
The notion that the owners of for-profit businesses have religious rights and can invoke them in trying to reject government action or intrusion is a relatively new idea without a long court history. Last year, however, the Supreme Court upheld the principle in the case of Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby stores.
Trying to tamp down a national uproar over the Indiana religious freedom law, Pence said Tuesday that he has asked the state legislature to change the measure by week’s end — even as he stepped up his defense of the law, arguing that it has been misconstrued in the press.
The national public backlash against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Pence acknowledged, is threatening the state’s economy with several companies and organizations vowing to boycott the state in response to it.
Pence said he has been on the phone with business leaders from across the country and that he wanted to make clear that “Indiana is open for business.”
