The Slatest

“Fix This Now,” Indiana’s Largest Newspaper Demands in Huge Front-Page RFRA Headline

Update, 9:55 a.m.: Indiana Gov. Mike Pence indicated Tuesday in a Fox News appearance that he would be open to legislation preventing the RFRA from being used to discriminate against LGBT individuals. From the Hill:

Pence seemed more open than before to allowing debate over passing a statewide non-discrimination law that protects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, which would likely mitigate what critics say are the negative effects of the religious freedom law.

“Let me say, that’s not been my position — that’s not been the position of the state of Indiana — but If the legislature brought that up, they can certainly have that debate,” Pence said.

In an ABC appearance Sunday, Pence had said a nondiscrimination law was “not on my agenda” and “doesn’t have anything to do with [the RFRA].”

Original post, 9:18 a.m.: Joining a number of other individuals, groups, and businesses from across the political spectrum, Indiana’s largest newspaper called Tuesday in a front-page editorial for legislation guaranteeing that LGBT individuals cannot be discriminated against under the state’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act. (For more on the way Indiana’s RFRA enables discrimination, you can read this Monday Slate piece.) From the Indianapolis Star’s article:

Gov. Mike Pence and the General Assembly need to enact a state law to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, education and public accommodations on the basis of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Those protections and RFRA can co-exist. They do elsewhere.

On Monday a number of potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates said, with varying levels of equivocation, that they support Indiana’s RFRA. Jeb Bush’s unambiguous take was perhaps most notable given that he’s seen as a relative moderate. (Marco Rubio and Scott Walker, two other “electable” candidates, were relatively noncomittal in their statements on the law.)

“I think Gov. [Mike] Pence has done the right thing,” former Florida governor and likely 2016 contender Jeb Bush said in a Monday interview. “I think once the facts are established, people aren’t going to see this as discriminatory at all.”

Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and Ben Carson also praised Indiana’s legislation.

Read more of Slate’s coverage of the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act.