Immediately after Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) announced that he was sending a controversial religious freedom bill back to the state legislature, the mayor of Sacramento said Hutchinson did the right thing.
Kudos to Gov @AsaHutchinson for asking for changes in #HB1228. Big win for inclusion and diversity in Arkansas.
— Kevin Johnson (@KJ_MayorJohnson) April 1, 2015
Hutchinson, at a press conference on Wednesday, said he asked the state legislature to make changes to the legislation so that it more closely mirrored the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.
When Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) defended his decision to sign a much-criticized religious freedom bill into law he repeatedly referred to Democrats supporting the federal version of the law. Opponents argue that that law is designed to allow businesses to discriminate against gay people.
Pence has been under widespread criticism by businesses with national stakes in Indiana for signing the law. Some of those figures, like Apple CEO Tim Cook, warned Arkansas to not copy Indiana and quickly sign a religious freedom bill into law.
I’m sorry, but if he had any real cajones, he would have just vetoed the blasted thing.
…but the Teanderthals who wrote the bill in the first place would override his veto.
As with a recent local anti-discrimination bill AH let the bill languish on his desk without signing –
it became law.
AH placated Walmart by sending bill back to legislature…
Not holding my breath for ethics to suddenly dissipate the redness of AR… which has been blue until recently.
Huge Koch influx of money contributed to the demise.
And of course the Arkansas governor can say it wasn’t him that did it, he wanted it changed but the legislators overruled him.
If he is secretly for this bill, it’s a win/win for him because he (and by default his state) won’t get the blame.
This is movement in the right direction but acting as if a documented sexual predator, GOP operative and overall opportunist like Johnson praising any participant in this latest wave of ORCHESTRATED NATIONWIDE state GOP legislative maneuvers is meaningful just helps hide what is really going on.
Do you really think it is a coincidence that multiple red states are pushing the same legislation through at the same time? How about a story on who is behind that?
If memory serves the Federal law deals exclusively with government actions and can be used as a shield. The Indiana law also covers disputes between individuals It can be used as a sword or a shield. The Indiana law clearly includes corporations as people too. Just about any damn thing can be a religious belief.