Various outlets, from the Weekly Standard to the Washington Post, mischaracterized the new law as an anodyne 20th addition to the 19 other “religious freedom” laws going back to 1993. Pence wasn’t alone in his efforts to distort his intent. Then, on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Pence refused to answer a simple yes/no question over whether the law permitted discrimination against LGBT citizens. Despite over 80 guests at the signing, Pence’s office refused to disclose a list of the attendees and provided an uncaptioned picture instead. So if you’re going to be a bigot, why be a coward about it? You’d have to ask Mike Pence. The real political mistake was the strength of the RFRA in the first place: rather than a mealy-mouthed statutory reminder of the constitutional right to religion without government interference to placate a loud minority, it boldly delineates the mechanisms of unaccountable discrimination on a citizen-by-citizen basis and dangerously reminds the rest of us of the control that Christian bigots have had over American society from day one until the present.
