Gov. Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, says that the religious freedom law passed in the state was never intended to give a “license to discriminate” against gay and lesbian couples.
Video By Reuters on Publish Date March 31, 2015. Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images.
Mr. Pence has said he wants to modify the bill, but he has not indicated how he could do so without undermining it. He rejected claims that the law would allow private businesses to deny service to gay men and lesbians and said the criticism was based on a “perception problem” that additional legislation could fix.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that it would be helpful to move legislation this week that makes it clear that this law does not give businesses the right to discriminate against anyone,” Mr. Pence, a Republican, said at a news conference in Indianapolis.
He acknowledged that the law had become a threat to the state’s reputation and economy, with companies and organizations signaling that they would avoid Indiana in response. Mr. Pence said he had been on the phone with business leaders from around the country, adding, “We want to make it clear that Indiana’s open for business.”
The bill in Arkansas is similar to the Indiana law, with both diverging in certain respects from the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That act was passed in 1993 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, Arkansas’s most famous political son.
But the political context has changed widely since then. The law was spurred by an effort to protect Native Americans in danger of losing their jobs because of religious ceremonies that involved an illegal drug, peyote. Now the backdrop is often perceived to be the cultural division over
same-sex marriage.
Both states’ laws allow for larger corporations, if they are substantially owned by members with strong religious convictions, to claim that a ruling or mandate violates their religious faith, something reserved for individuals or family businesses in other versions of the law. Both allow religious parties to go to court to head off a “likely” state action that they fear will impinge on their beliefs, even if it has not yet happened.
The Arkansas act contains another difference in wording, several legal experts said, that could make it harder for the government to override a claim of religious exemption. The state, according to the Arkansas bill, must show that a law or requirement that someone is challenging is “essential” to the furtherance of a compelling governmental interest, a word that is absent from the federal law and those in other states, including Indiana.
“It has way too broad an application,” said John DiPippa, a professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock law school, who had spoken before the legislature in 2011 on behalf of a narrower and ultimately unsuccessful version of the bill. “I never anticipated or supported applying it to for-profit companies and certainly never anticipated it applying to actions outside of government.”
Though Arkansas has now joined Indiana as a target of criticism from businesses, condemnation of Indiana’s law continued to grow.
Days before the N.C.A.A. is to hold the men’s basketball Final Four in Indianapolis, the group’s president, Mark Emmert, said Tuesday that the new law “strikes at the core values of what higher education in America is all about.” The city’s mayor, Greg Ballard, a Republican, and the state Chamber of Commerce have called on lawmakers to change the statute.
Business executives, notably leaders of tech companies like Apple and Yelp, have spoken out against the law, and Angie’s List cited it in canceling plans to expand its facilities in Indianapolis. Entertainers have canceled tour dates in the state, a gaming convention is considering going elsewhere and the governors of Connecticut, New York and Washington have imposed bans on state-funded travel to Indiana.
Photo
Representative Bob Ballinger of Arkansas, right, was among the bill’s sponsors who dismissed amendments to the measure. CreditDanny Johnston/Associated Press
On the other hand, likely Republican presidential contenders — prominent among them Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio — have supported the law.
Even the White House joined in. “This piece of legislation flies in the face of the kinds of values that people all across the country strongly support,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday at his daily briefing.
Mr. McMillon of Walmart, in a statement, said the bill in Arkansas “threatens to undermine the spirit of inclusion present throughout the state,” while the chief executive of Acxiom, a marketing technology company based in Little Rock that employs nearly 1,600 statewide, described the bill as “a deliberate vehicle for enabling discrimination.”
Governor Hutchinson, a pragmatic Republican who ran on a jobs platform, said in an earlier statement that he was “pleased that the legislature is continuing to look at ways to assure balance and fairness in the legislation.”
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