- Banned
- #1
About face, march!!! 
Religious conservatives and some Republican political operatives now describe what occurred here as a major setback. For years now, they have been using “religious freedom” as a slogan and the legal answer to the growing gay rights movement.
INDIANAPOLIS — Roman Catholic nuns and brothers in robes along with conservative activists and lawmakers, all surrounded Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana last week as he signed what was billed as a religious freedom law.
Smiling and proud, some of them had cheered the bill as a way to protect religious business owners from having to provide cakes and flowers to same-sex weddings.
But on Thursday, as the state’s top Republican legislative leaders here announced they were changing the law to specify that it will not authorize discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity, a far different cast stood behind them, including a prominent gay businessman and corporate leaders from Eli Lilly, the Indiana Pacers and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.
But now, many Christian conservatives say that what happened over the last week in Indiana — and in Arkansas, where lawmakers backed away from a similar law — has been a terrible blow to their movement. They are left with a law at war with itself, with language that seems to cancel out what it had been designed to accomplish.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/us/rights-laws-quickly-fall-into-retreat.html?_r=0
Religious conservatives and some Republican political operatives now describe what occurred here as a major setback. For years now, they have been using “religious freedom” as a slogan and the legal answer to the growing gay rights movement.
INDIANAPOLIS — Roman Catholic nuns and brothers in robes along with conservative activists and lawmakers, all surrounded Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana last week as he signed what was billed as a religious freedom law.
Smiling and proud, some of them had cheered the bill as a way to protect religious business owners from having to provide cakes and flowers to same-sex weddings.But on Thursday, as the state’s top Republican legislative leaders here announced they were changing the law to specify that it will not authorize discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity, a far different cast stood behind them, including a prominent gay businessman and corporate leaders from Eli Lilly, the Indiana Pacers and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.
But now, many Christian conservatives say that what happened over the last week in Indiana — and in Arkansas, where lawmakers backed away from a similar law — has been a terrible blow to their movement. They are left with a law at war with itself, with language that seems to cancel out what it had been designed to accomplish.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/us/rights-laws-quickly-fall-into-retreat.html?_r=0
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