Gov. Mike Pence
Indiana’s having no luck digging itself out of the homophobic hole it dug for itself when the legislature passed the fist so-call Religious Freedom Restoration Act to protect poor churches from discrimination by the big, bad gays.
After the law passed, the state lost a ton of business. Companies halted expansions in the state. Others cancelled travel to the state. Conventions were eighty-sixed and moved elsewhere.
Rather than fix the law or provide nondiscrimination protections, Gov. Mike Pence hired a PR firm.
Nothing has worked and the state is still suffering.
The mayor of one Indiana city — Elkhart —decided to do something about it, according to the Elkhart Truth. Mayor Dick Moore proposed a city LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance that would cover employment, housing and public accommodations.
Opponents rallied, using the insidious “men dressed as women will rape your girls in restrooms” argument. Moore and the city council were barraged (well, some council members claimed as many as 10 calls a day), so the proposal was withdrawn.
Pence isn’t backing down from his support of the state law that protects discrimination as long as someone screams religion. So maybe Indiana passed exactly the law it wanted and the state is proud to discriminate — even in a city whose mayor tried to do the right thing.
