Why a GOP Gambit Backfired in Indiana - The New Yorker
The editorial inside said that the law, “whatever its original intent,” had created a “deep mess,” one that endangered the state’s reputation and its economy. The newspaper argued that nothing short of a comprehensive state anti-discrimination law that would protect the rights of gays and lesbians would fix it. Governor Pence has said that he has no interest in such a law, although this morning he... The Indiana law is the product of a G. O. P. search for a respectable way to oppose same-sex marriage and to rally the base around it. There are two problems with this plan, however. First, not everyone in the party, even in its most conservative precincts, wants to make gay marriage an issue, even a stealth one—or opposes gay marriage to begin with. As the unhappy reaction in Indiana shows, plenty of Republicans find the anti-marriage position embarrassing, as do some business interests that are normally aligned with the party. Second, the law is not an empty rhetorical device but one that has been made strangely powerful, in ways that haven’t yet been fully tested, by the Supreme Court decision last year in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Source: www.newyorker.com
