Mike Pence on Monday defended his signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and said he was prepared to support “adjustments” to make it clear that it was never intended to legalize discrimination.
The act, “is simply a framework for courts to balance the various interests of citizens in a way that respects our nation’s strong and longstanding commitment to the importance of religious liberty,” Indiana’s Republican governor said on Fox News Tuesday morning.
Critics of the law — which he signed last week — say it opens the door for Indiana businesses to discriminate against same-sex couples.
Pence continues to deny this notion, saying it “mirrors what President Clinton signed into law in 1993” and is the law “in some 30 states around America.”
“There is no license to discriminate in this law. I abhor discrimination. The intention of this law was to give our courts in Indiana a framework […] to be able or review cases where religious liberty is infringed upon,” he said, before citing his participation in the 45th anniversary of Selma as how he is anti-discrimination.
“Five years ago, my wife and my family walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge with John Lewis when I co-chaired the pilgrimage to mark the 45th anniversary of Bloody Sunday,” Pence said. “I abhor discrimination. If I was in a restaurant and saw a business owner deny services to someone because they were gay, I wouldn’t eat there anymore. Frankly, that’s how most Hoosiers are.”
“It’s important to me in this process and we’ll do it through legislation that people know that Indiana is standing here for religious liberty,” he added. “But there was never any intention in this law to create a license to discriminate.”
He vowed, “If we have to make adjustments in this law to make it clear that simply that this law was never intended, as some have mischaracterized it, to create the impression that businesses have the right to turn away customers for sexual orientation or any other reason — we’re going to fix that.”
Pence echoed his support for the law in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Ensuring Religious Freedom in Indiana,” published in Tuesday’s print edition.
In the op-ed, Pence writes that Obamacare made it necessary to ensure that “religious liberty is fully protected under Indiana law.”
The 2010 Affordable Care Act “renewed concerns about government infringement on deeply held religious beliefs.”
The law, he reaffirms, does not give businesses legal protection to deny services on the basis of sexual orientation.
“With the passage of this legislation, Indiana will continue to be a place that respects the beliefs of every person in our state,” he concluded.
