President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Biden*

(R) Donald Trump

80%

20%↓

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

90%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

90%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(D) Adam Frisch

(R) Jeff Hurd

(R) Ron Hanks

40%

30%

20%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(R) J. Sonnenberg

(R) Ted Harvey

20%↑

15%↑

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Dave Williams

(R) Jeff Crank

(R) Doug Bruce

20%

20%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

90%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) Brittany Pettersen

85%↑

 

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

(R) Janak Joshi

60%↑

40%↑

20%↑

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
March 31, 2015 01:13 PM UTC

Hate: It's Still Bad For Business

  • 13 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Denver Mayor Michael Hancock bans nonessential travel by city employees to the state of Indiana, Denver Post:

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock on Tuesday joined the chorus of cities and states that have banned government-funded travel to Indiana over its new Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In Denver’s case, the prohibition applies to “non-essential” travel by city employees on official business, which could include trips to conventions in Indianapolis.

—–

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R).
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R).

It’s not directly pertinent to Colorado politics, but the controversy over the state of Indiana’s passage of a Religious Freedom Restoration Act–which as a result of the state’s lack of discrimination protections for LGBT residents could open the door to lawful discrimination in the name of religious freedom–is worth a thread of its own. Politico’s Adam Lerner has a smart take on the situation today, and the political implications for potential 2016 presidential contender Indiana Gov. Mike Pence:

Indiana’s Republican governor has become the left’s favorite punching bag after passing a Religious Freedom Restoration Act last Thursday at a ceremony featuring a number of conservative religious leaders.

“Many people of faith feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action,” Pence warned. The law, he said, ensures that “government action will always be subject to the highest level of scrutiny.”

The bill’s backers say it’s almost identical to any of the 19 other RFRA laws currently on the books, including for the federal government and in deep blue states like Illinois and Connecticut. Critics counter that this bill’s specific language, when coupled with Indiana’s lack of a civil rights law protecting LGBT citizens, makes it a vehicle for discrimination. They say it would allow businesses to deny services to gay and lesbian couples by claiming a religious compulsion.

Although similar laws exist in many states (not in Colorado, of course, where our state’s decade-long Democratic control has made every attempt at a RFRA-type bill a politically toxic nonstarter), it’s the absence of affirmative discrimination protections in Indiana law alongside a law like RFRA that make it a bigger problem there.

But there’s something more important at work in the nationwide backlash against RFRA’s passage in Indiana, which could become a much greater threat to the career aspirations of Gov. Pence than passage of RFRA could ever have helped him. We saw this last when Arizona’s legislature passed a similar bill, and basically the entire American corporate culture went to war to prevent that state’s governor from signing it into law.

It is rapidly becoming no longer cool, in objective, hard economic terms, to discriminate against gay people. What this cultural change represents, regardless of what happens in Indiana in the short term, is a tremendous long-term victory for LGBT rights proponents over the religious right and their political benefactors. And unfortunately for Republicans who would like to end this particular war, which has cost them a generation of voters even as gay marriage bans passed across the nation in the last 15 years, they are still the party of discrimination.

We’ve said it before, and Colorado politics bear it out: either the GOP catches up with the rest of America on this issue, with deeds not words, or it becomes part of their long-term destruction. This is not a partisan attack, it’s advice that Republicans everywhere should take.

Comments

13 thoughts on “Hate: It’s Still Bad For Business

  1. Let’s all pray that Focus on the Family sees the divine intervention here, packs their camels and tabernacle, and pilgrimages their entire nutty persecuted ilk to the promised land of Indianapolis . . . 

    ( . . . I’m also secretly hoping for forty years of wanderings through the deserts of Nebraska and Iowa . . . )

    1. Speaking of Focus on the Family: while driving on the north side of Colorado Springs on I-25, I noticed that portion of the highway was adopted by the local LGBT chapter. It’s the mile or so that passes by the FotF HQ. Brilliant!! Well played!

  2. Here’s food for thought. In that now infamous interview, though Pence kept insisting that good ol’ Hoosiers are friendly folks who don’t hate or discriminate, he refused, six times in a row, to answer a yes or no question on whether the new law would allow businesses to discriminate against the LGBT.  Absolutely refused to answer, just complained about how the law was misunderstood. On the other hand when asked if he would support, as part of the “clarification” legislation,  including the LGBT as a protected class, as is the case in the other states with similar but far less extensive “religious freedom” laws he kept referring to, he had no trouble coming up with a simple direct “no”. That should be instructive.  

  3. As I wrote on another thread, I was born and raised in Indiana. It was my home state for 31 years before moving to Colorado. That said, Mike Pence has been a sock puppet of the religious right ever since he got into politics. It’s no surprise to me that he signed such a radical bill; and then……well, duh…..”I didn’t know this bill would hurt the economy.”   C.H.B. 

    1. With all the Republican corporate and business push back they’re getting, could this be a turning point in the relationship between corporate Republicans and the religious right/tinfoil wacko contingent they thought they could play to help them win elections but which has morphed into the monster they can’t control? This is definitely not the usual R/Dem split. I don’t watch Fox but I’m guessing it must be confusing for them to know exactly which way to go with this?

  4. Since Indiana does not extend employment or public accommodations protection to LGBT persons, Indianans are currently free to discriminate against LGBT persons–whether for religious or merely homophobic reasons.

    The recently enacted Indiana RFRA would actually permit Indianans to raise a religious objection to complying with existing anti-discrimination laws, such as those that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or national origin.

    So this isn’t about LGBT rights–which don’t currently exist in Indiana.  It’s about rolling back existing anti-discrimination law.

    1. That’s right, OTD. The religious “right” to discriminate against LGBTQ folk is just the easiest thing for the tea party base to swallow- but it truly does roll back decades of civil rights law. And that will be a bitter pill for all Indianans.

  5. I didn’t need this to boycott Indiana. To borrow from Mark Twain, I spent the most miserable decade of my life during eight weeks in Indiana in the summer of 1969. I had a paid fellowship to be there, but I couldn’t stand to go back–certainly not in the summer. So I guess it is an empty threat for me to boycott Indiana. But clearly, discrimination is bad for business–as well as just being….bad.

    1. I know what you mean. It’s pretty meaningless to “boycott” businesses you never patronize and places you never go anyway.  Me “boycotting” Indiana will be pretty much like me boycotting Chick Fil a. Zero effect on me or Indiana. Fortunately, lots of businesses and organizations whose behavior will affect Indiana can take meaningful action and we can be supportive of them. 

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

177 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!