PolitiFact Sunday disputed Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s assertion about President Obama’s support for a religious freedom law when he was an Illinois politician — but the fact-checking site’s argument relies heavily on assumptions about the “intent” of a highly similar law Pence signed last week, and the site does not refute Pence’s claim that the two laws (along with a 22-year-old federal law) have the “same language.”
For PolitiFact, Pence’s claim that Obama supported a religious freedom law with the “very same language” as the one the Indiana Republican signed into law last week rates as only “half-true,” that is, the “statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.”
The fact-checking group claimed the Indiana and Illinois acts are different, but the biggest difference cited was a clause in the definitions section of the Indiana law affording group protection as well as individual protection. More nebulously, Politifact’s Katie Sanders asserted that religiously based discrimination was “far from an intent of Illinois’ law” — which Obama voted for as a Democratic Illinois state senator in the late 1990s.
“Our fact-check of Gov. Pence centered around two claims,” PolitiFact editor Aaron Sharockman told the Washington Examiner’s media desk. “The first is fairly straight forward. He said that the Illinois bill Sen. Barack Obama voted for in 1998 has the ‘very same language’ as the Indiana law. That is plainly not the case.”
“Some people we spoke with Sunday see the differences as significant. Others don’t agree. We make no judgment if the differences are significant or not, though we certainly note the different views,” he said.
Pence signed the Indiana bill, which claims to protect religious liberties from encroachment by federal and state government, last Thursday, and both Pence and the law have been met with significant pushback, including calls to boycott the Hoosier State.
Public figures, including CEOs, reporters and entertainers, allege that Indiana’s religious freedom bill is “anti-gay” and that it allows Hoosiers to discriminate against members of the LGBT community. The words “gay” “lesbian,” and “sexual orientation” are nowhere to be found in the Indiana bill.
Responding to the criticism, Pence in an interview Sunday stressed the strong resemblance between the bill he signed last week and the one Obama supported in 1997.
“Then state-Sen. Barack Obama voted for [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] when he was in the state senate of Illinois,” Pence said in an interview Sunday. “The very same language.”
Pence also stated that sexual orientation “doesn’t have anything to do” with Indiana’s law.
PoltiFact’s Sharockman told the Examiner this claim is “in the eye of beholder.”
“Pence says it does not. Other people who support the legislation — Miller — have said it does. As do people who oppose the legislation. How will this play out? Who knows,” he said.
Like the Illinois law, Indiana’s law is a state version of the federal law passed by Congress in 1993. The 1993 law, signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a person’s free exercise of their religion – unless the government can show it has a “compelling interest” and that it can do so in a way that is as non-restrictive as possible.
Likewise, the Indiana bill states, “[A] governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.” The Indiana law also allows for compelling-interest exceptions.
But the Indiana law provides protection for individuals as well as companies and corporations. This is where PolitiFact dings Pence for being only “half true.”
“In one sense, there isn’t all that much difference between the bill that got Obama’s vote in Illinois 17 years ago and the bill that Pence signed into law last week,” the group reported.
But Indiana’s inclusion of companies and corporations, which are absent from the Illinois law, as well as a dramatic shift since 1997 in the public’s opinion of same-sex marriage, renders Pence’s claim iffy, PolitFact said.
“Pence’s explanation is an oversimplification of the purpose of the law then and the motivation of some pushing the law now. Proponents of this law are pushing the measure as a way that businesses can seek protection ‘for refusing to participate in a homosexual marriage,'” Sanders reported, referencing remarks made by Eric Miller of Advance America, an organization that PolitiFact claims wants to “limit civil rights for gays and lesbians.”
According to PolitiFact, it was never the intent of Illinois’ law to discriminate against same-sex couples, suggesting that support for Indiana’s law from groups like Advance America could mean that the Hoosier law does.
“As for the language itself, Pence is incorrect to say the language is the same. Some pro-LGBT rights groups say the outright inclusion of a corporation or company as a ‘person’ is overly broad, though the true impact will likely only really be settled when matters are sent to a court,” PolitiFact concluded.
The Republican governor is not completely wrong, Sharockman stressed. It’s that Pence “glossed” over important details and his statement lacked proper context.
“In the end, Pence glossed over both the concerns of opponents of the law and statements made by some of its supporters. He also failed to note that Illinois now provides protections to same sex couples that Indiana does not,” he said. “He did not include the vastly different historical contexts of the two measures at the time when they were considered. And his claim that the language was the very same is inaccurate.”
