WASHINGTON — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) says he’s leaning heavily toward joining local Indiana Democrats calling for a full repeal of a controversial religious freedom law that critics say is a thinly-veiled move to legalize gay discrimination.
Inslee, one of the governors who instituted taxpayer funded-travel bans to Indiana in response to Gov. Mike Pence (R) signing the law, in an interview with TPM on Wednesday, said he wasn’t completely sure but full repeal would be his preference for fixing the law. Pence, on Tuesday, said he would push for a clarification of the law. Indiana Democrats, however, have demanded for full repeal of the law as a solution.
“A repeal, to me, seems to be in order, to make clear that the state of Indiana does not allow discrimination,” Inslee told TPM. “And there’s really no other reason, at least, that necessitated this type of act, except the desire to discriminate against LGBT members. That’s what drove this. So it would seem to me a repeal would be in order given how dramatic this was a reversal of the progress we’ve made against discrimination and in favor of civil rights in this country. I mean that’s certainly what I’d recommend.”
A similar law was recently under consideration in Arkansas. On Wednesday, Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said he would send his religious freedom bill back to the state legislature to be reworked. Inslee refrained from saying definitively if he would institute a ban if Hutchison signed his state’s religious freedom bill into law.
“We’re considering as a state-by-state situation and we’ll consider it a state at a time,” Inslee said. “We understand that if a few state employees from our state of Washington don’t go to Indiana for the next several months, that’s not going to bring Indiana to its knees economically.”
Travel bans are one way lawmakers from other states are trying to apply pressure to Pence. Another is attempting to poach businesses from Indiana. Chicago Mayor Emanuel (D), for example, sent a letter to major Indiana business encouraging them to come to Illinois in general, and Chicago in particular. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has made a similar invitation to come to his state.
Inslee said he hadn’t made similar outreaches but suggested the temptation was there.
“I know there’s one company that said they’d put their headquarters decision on hold. I haven’t called them yet but maybe ‘ll do that in some time,” Inslee said, not naming the business. “But I will tell you the Indiana Pacers would be welcome. Larry Bird would look good on our bench.”
While Democratic politicians have been quick to denounce the rash of anti-gay bills across the nation, a recent poll found that Americans in general are apathetic.
On Wednesday afternoon, Bloomberg’s Dave Weigel pointed to a March Marist poll which found that 54 percent of Americans supported “allowing First Amendment religious liberty protection or exemptions of faith based organizations and individuals” even when that conflicted with government laws. Insleep shrugged that finding off.
“I think these polls are slippery things,” Inslee said, “but I tell you if you ask Americans if it’s an American thing for a business owner to deny employment to an African American because their religion says only Caucasians go to heaven, I think it would be very saying that’s illegal discrimination.”
Full repeal. Now. These laws are just an attempt to get around anti-discrimination statutes.