Continuing this thread, Indiana TV station RTV6 reports more business unrest:
The CEOs of Emmis Communications, Anthem, Cummins, Eli Lilly & Co., Dow AgroSciences, Angie’s List, Indiana University Health, Roche Diagnostics and Salesforce sent the joint letter to Gov. Mike Pence, House Speaker Brian Bosma and Senate President Pro-Tem David Long on Monday afternoon. …
The letter says the companies are “deeply concerned” about the impact the law is having on their employees and the reputation of the state.
“All of our companies seek to promote fair, diverse and inclusive workplaces,” the letter reads. “Our employees must not feel unwelcome in the place where they work and live.”
The letter ends by asking lawmakers to immediately enact new legislation that “makes it clear that neither the Religious Freedom Restoration Act nor any other Indiana law can be used to justify discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Governor Pence, considering a Presidential run, appears bewildered, reports Tim Swarens at the IndyStar:
I asked the governor if he had anticipated the strongly negative reaction set off by the bill’s passage. His response made it clear that he and his team didn’t see it coming.
“I just can’t account for the hostility that’s been directed at our state,” he said. “I’ve been taken aback by the mischaracterizations from outside the state of Indiana about what is in this bill.”
In defense of the legislation, he noted that 19 other states and the federal government have adopted RFRA laws similar to Indiana’s. And he pointed out that President Barack Obama voted for Illinois’ version of RFRA as a state senator.
The governor also criticized the news media’s coverage of the legislation. “Despite the irresponsible headlines that have appeared in the national media, this law is not about discrimination,” he said. “If it was, I would have vetoed it.”
Yet, those justifications, cited repeatedly by the governor’s supporters in recent days, have done little to quell the controversy.
Pence reportedly will submit a “clarification” bill to supplement the meaning of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but this is the sort of unsettling controversy which will leave independent voters wondering if he’s really ready for the national stage. Meanwhile, another legal scholar, Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy, suggests this is a tempest in a teapot:
Are the claims made against the new Indiana law accurate? Not really. This law, like other RFRAs, merely requires that state laws meet a demanding, but hardly insurmountable, test before infringing upon the religious practice or conscience of religious believers. If the law imposes a substantial burden on religious belief, the law must yield unless the law serves a compelling state interest and is the least burdensome way to advance that interest. Here’s more background on how these sorts of laws work.
Business leaders rarely reach the C-Suite based on charisma or other irrational reasons; instead, they tend to be hard-headed rationalists. They’re certainly not always right, but they also don’t always move in concert (here’s a report on a pro-union business owner, for example). If business leaders of especially large businesses, such as Eli Lilly, are expressing concern and making, at least, contingency plans, then that suggests their legal departments have conducted their own analyses of the bill in question and have come to conclusions at variance with Mr. Adler and others.
Naturally, most small businesses are geographically constrained and cannot make threats of this sort; indeed, they may feel that complaining about this law would redound on their bottom line, and so they are remaining mum. The fact that these businesses are willing to incur the costs of moving out of Indiana is deeply indicative of their concern for their employees. It may be going too far to suggest this is a large split between the GOP (who currently controls the Indiana government) and Big Business, given that BB is hardly a homogenous entity, but it’s certainly a tremor indicating deep religious conservatism may not be congruent with a business constrained to working in the real world and unable to tolerate irrationalism.
(h/t Gwennedd @ The Daily Kos)
