Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is throwing his support behind a religious freedom bill that’s broader in many ways than the controversial one in Indiana that Gov. Mike Pence (R) was forced to clarify after a national uproar.
“Yes, we support the bill,” Jindal spokeswoman Shannon Bates Dirmann said according to The New Orleans Times-Picayune. “This is a common sense bill that provides necessary protections for individuals to prevent adverse treatment from the state based on religious beliefs regarding marriage.”
The bill, introduced by Louisiana state Rep. Mike Johnson, allows businesses to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage. It also would allow a private company to not offer benefits to same-sex married couples based on religious objections.
Jindal’s support for this bill falls in line with him backing the Indiana bill and similar legislation in Arkansas, which Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) sent back to the state legislature to better reflect a federal religious freedom law passed in 1993.
Pence was forced to clarify that the religious freedom bill he supported and signed into law was not meant to discriminate against anyone after national figures, like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Apple CEO Tim Cook, called out the law as a thinly veiled license to discriminate against gay people.
