Posted on 03/31/2015 10:04:47 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Governor Mike Pence of Indiana seems to have caved into enormous pressure and will ask the state legislature for new legislation to make it clear that Christian florists and bakers could be forced to participate in weddings that violate their religious beliefs.
Last week, Indiana joined 19 other states and the federal government by enacting a law to protect religious believers from governmental encroachment on religious freedom. Such legislation was cited in the recent Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision that determined religious employers could not be forced to supply abortion drugs to employees under ObamaCare.
In a packed press conference this morning, Pence did not give specifics about what the new legislation would say, only that he wants it to make clear that “Indiana businesses will not be able to discriminate against anyone for any reason.” He said the religion freedom bill he signed was never considered by him or the bill’s sponsors to allow a “license to discriminate.”
Such legislation has been read as supporting businesses and individuals not just to avoid supplying abortion drugs, but also allowing certain businesses to avoid serving gay weddings, usually bakers and photographers some who are now being run out of business for refusing to serve what they see as a religious ceremony that violates their own deeply held beliefs.
Pence and the state of Indiana absorbed a tsunami of protest from the main stream media, major corporations, athletes, movie stars and gay leaders after enacting the bill......
....Social conservatives, a base Pence would need if he tries to make it through the GOP primaries, were immediately upset.
Columnist Robert Knight tells Breitbart News, “Mr. Pence would do well to find out what Scott Walker had for breakfast when he faced down union mobs, the media and the ruling elites.”....
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Speaking in 2012 to a teleconference with activists from Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, Walker said his faith has enabled him to rise above the “vitriol, and the constant, ongoing hatred” during the recall election he faced in the wake of his anti-union legislation, which has crippled the state’s once-iconic labor movement. Along with the unmistakable contrast of his church-going family with the profane and progressive activists, Walker cited two Bible verses. He didn’t recite them, but for anyone who knows their Bible—as Walker, the son of a Baptist pastor, does—the meaning was clear. The verses that helped him withstand the hatred were Romans 16:20 (“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you”) and Isaiah 54:17 (“no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.”)
Should he run for president, Walker may very well turn out to be the 2016 cycle’s evangelical favorite—not because he ticks off a laundry list of culture war talking points, pledges fealty to a “Christian nation,” or because he’s made a show of praying publicly to curry political favor. Although by no means universal, some conservative evangelicals—those who eschew the fever swamps of talk radio, yet share the same political stances of the religious right—are weary of the old style of campaigning. They’re turned off by the culture war red meat, the dutiful but insincere orations of piety.
Emphasizing that ours is a “Christian nation” and pushing “hot button issues” as a style of campaigning has been detrimental to evangelicals, said Mary Jo Sharp, who teaches apologetics at Houston Baptist University and analyzes political campaigns as part of a class she teaches there. “It’s very difficult to hear” that kind of rhetoric, she said. “Christians are not supposed to be the dividers.”
Over the course of his political career in Wisconsin, Walker “hasn’t presented as any kind of culture warrior,” said Hunter Baker, Associate Professor of Political Science at Union University, a Southern Baptist school in Jackson, Tennessee. “One of the worst things that ever happened with conservative Christians,” said Baker, was that they “give in to a tribal impulse,” by questioning “are we getting the respect we perceive we once had, are we losing ground, we need to mobilize, we need to increase our force.” That, he added, “is a losing strategy. It gives people the sense you’re working from resentment.”.......
Wait. Wasn't that the whole point of the law?
Pence is toast.
So is his party.
These people complaining aren’t on the ground, in Indiana Citzens’ faces. They’re largely unsourced unidentified media blather and far away groups spewing queer hatred for Christianity.
For gosh sakes. Why give up before they are even physically at your doorstep instead of ceding to the electronic equivalent of a propaganda pamphlet drop.
No balls. That’s what the problem is. Too concerned about their image instead of standing for their convictions.
Pence will NEVER be more than he is now ... he is toast politically.
Pence is toast.
So is his party.
Just to clarify, Pence is toast because he has the cojones of a Kerry and a Boehner.
As for the GOP, the sooner we stick a fork in ‘em and get a real party, the better. We are in a full stall here, and recovery will entail a loss of altitude. Better now than later. Ditch RINOS. This is war. Really.
Pence should have doubled-down like Obola always does.
He's dead, Jim.
How about "Any business may refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason or no reason at all." instead.
What a coward. I’m surprised he didn’t cry.
I feel for Pence, they were waiting to pounce.
The Left is going to run these drills a lot.
It’s important to have our ducks in a row.
The plan is to make the Tea Party the “angry, racist, bigoted mob.
When you’re sitting at the poker table with these cheats you need to know the cards and keep your poker face.
Didn’t take long for the Governor’s balls to shrivel.
Put a fork in this coward. If one is not willing to fight for deeply held principles, then they are neither principles nor are they deeply held.
Ipso facto Pence has no principles.
I so detest the Republican party.
How do you identify the Republican? He’s the one with the yellow stain on the front of his pants.
I bet that if I moved to Indiana and set up a bakery or florist shop and advertised that I specialized in gay weddings, I would:
A. Not be sued by a Christian group of any kind
B. go out of business for lack of income.
I predicted he would cave, and in less than oneweek. Probably ensured his reelection.
Yes, understood. But it seems he wasn’t even face-to-face with them at the table.
Oh, no. I got the impression he had not buckled. I guess I was wrong.
Seemingly there has been some sort of PR mistake, and everyone has been wrong aobut this law. According to Rush and Gov. Pence have both said that this law does not give anyone the power to discriminate against anybody. Seemingly, someone was misled to believe that this law would give a business owner the right to refuse service to parties on the basis of religous objection, but I guess that is not the case.
I don't.
I'm disgusted with him.
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