Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) characterized critics of Indiana’s religious liberty law as chronic malcontents stirred up by “hype and hysteria” in the media, according to audio surfaced by Buzzfeed Thursday.
“I just think this is people who are chronically looking for ways to be upset about things instead of really looking at what it is,” Walker said during an interview with Milwaukee-based radio host Charlie Sykes on Wednesday.
“I believe in protecting religious freedoms,” he continued. “It’s inherent in our state’s constitution. Heck, it’s inherent in our U.S. Constitution. And again, in Wisconsin, we’ve done it and we’re stronger for it.”
Walker made the remarks when asked whether he would have approved a religious-freedom bill like the one Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) recently signed into law.
“We don’t need to; in Wisconsin, we have it in the constitution,” Walker responded again.
“It’s even more entrenched than anything that can be in the state statues, and we don’t have the kind of hype and hysteria that the national media is creating on this,” he added.
Listen below via Buzzfeed:
Note to Scotty: The Wisconsin Constitution has a clause that is c&p from the First Amendment. Indiana could have done the same thing. Are you rally as stupid as Cotton et al?
Wisconsin was the first state to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, education, credit and all public accommodations. That law was signed by a Republican Governor back in 1982. That might be the reason our state currently doesn’t have the “hype and hysteria” over allowing businesses to discriminate against people based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, education, credit and all public accommodations like the current Indiana law does.
Maybe Scott Walker just doesn’t know this? He probably dropped out of college before they taught basic Wisconsin political history.
Again, just to clarify, businesses in Wisconsin cannot discriminate against people based on “religious liberty.” Perhaps Scott Walker might be asked to explain how Wisconsin’s Constitution is able to protect “religious liberty,” while also protecting people from public discrimination. I bet some of his fellow Republicans might be surprised to learn that religious liberty and the right to discriminate are not actually the same thing.
And believe me, the conservative religious organizations that back Walker here in Wisconsin are deadset on changing Wisconsin law and amending our constitution to allow for the type of discriminatory laws they are trying to pass in other states. These groups might be surprised to know that Walker now believes that their advocacy and political beliefs amount to nothing more than “hype and hysteria that the national media is creating,” or alternately that these groups are so incompetent or impotent that anyone taking them and their agenda seriously are just overreacting.
I simply can’t get my head around how people in a basically sane and decent state would choose to be governed by a such a willfully stupid,deliberately abrasive, mean spirited asshole three times. Just don’t get it.
It’s spelled “Koch” and has to do with money. Lots of money.
“It is a fundamental tenet of the Republican Party that government ought not intrude in the private lives of individuals where no state purpose is served, and there is nothing more private or intimate than who you live with and who you love.” -Governor Lee Dreyfus, Republican, 1982.
Can you imagine a Republican having the courage to publicly say these words today?