I usually steer clear from conversations involving politics or religion, especially on social media. But I am making an exception today. My comments below refer to Governor Mike Pence (Indiana) signing into law the RFRA act on March 26, 2015.
I am the oldest of 5 children and as such I was expected to fill some very specific roles within my family as I was growing up. Starting at about age 11, one of those roles was to watch out for my brothers. This role encompassed many things. I made sure they completed their chores as well as the extra tasks that mom and dad assigned each of us every day. I made sure they ate breakfast and lunch. I made sure that the two older boys included their younger brother when they went out to play. I also made sure that whatever my brothers did in any given day couldn’t be misinterpreted by anyone who might see or hear about it. That meant that when my brothers were outside playing I was thinking 2 or 3 steps ahead of them to ensure that the stay-at-home moms on our street (and there were several) would only have good reports to give my mom and dad every evening about the things that went on while they were at work.
So, if I knew at age 11 (almost 12) that I had to play the role of making sure that what my brothers did was understood by our neighbors and not misinterpreted, it seems to me that someone in our state government has the role of making sure that our legislators actions are understood by those in our state as well as all of our neighboring states. Just like the original intent of my brothers behavior was up to the interpretation of the neighbors who saw it, the actions of the Indiana legislators are up to the interpretation of those who have seen or heard about it.
I can’t believe that no one in our state legislator could have predicted the fallout from signing this bill into law. So, the next logical assumption is that our governor was informed about the fallout and chose to sign the bill anyway. It defies logic that any governor would want to portray the people of their state as ignorant, backward and intolerant. And it certainly defies every ounce of common sense that I have ever possessed to think that a governor would do something that would so negatively impact the economic situation of their state when countless entities refuse to travel to or have conferences and conventions in our state.
How can someone like a governor, with countless aides and assistants and other people whose sole job it is to make sure the governor looks good, not understand what I was able to comprehend as an almost 12-year-old child?
