Indiana House Speaker is "disappointed" in the way Pence has defended the bill to the public.
If this bill is just a bit of red meat to the base in order to get Pence something to talk about for a future election (President or just re-election), I think it's backfired at this point. The left was always going to hate this bill, but a lot of moderates are coming out against the bill as well, and I can't imagine the right thinks any more highly of Pence than before; after seeing him refusing to answer straight yes or no questions about the bill.
Obviously, because there are certain types of people who believe that "freedom" is defined by the ability of society to ostracize a group based on something as vague as "religious belief". They fail to realize that they are free to feel any way they want but that the basic construct of a functioning society is some basic respect towards inate qualities and personal choices (not that being gay is a choice, but even if it was it wouldn't matter). These types of people tend to be Republicans.
EDIT: I find it absolutely amazing that the same people who whine and bitch about a TV channel suspending one of their employees for hateful speech, citing that his right to free speech should go way beyond the ability of his employer to take any action, also support these bills. The only similarity is that they come down on the side of whoever is bashing the group that they hate. The hypocrisy and true motivations of the SoCons are obvious and apparent and so few call them out on a national stage in this context.
Very well said. More people on the national stage need to call out and expose these SoCon hypocrites for the bigots that they are. I give kudos to George Stephanopolpus for asking the tough questions to the squirming Mike Pence. I also find it amusing how the party that blames the victim and thinks that there's no such thing as victimhood is now creating a false narrative that they are the "victims" of a "far left radical liberal socialist atheist secular government and mainstream media" that is "forcing" them to contradict their faux moral compasses. I guess in their minds, you're only a victim if you're a far-right evangelical Christian.
SoCons, I think, realize their political clout is waning and these "religious freedom" bills are just Hail Marys and red meat. I love how outraged they were when A&E was threatening to pull the plug on Duck Dynasty after Phil Robertson make his asinine and bigoted remarks about blacks and gays but how silent they were at defending The Dixie Chicks when Natalie Maines voiced her opposition to Bush and the war. I don't seem to recall any SoCons defending them when almost every country music radio station stopped playing their music after the remarks were made. Hypocrites, all of them. I'm exposed to them every day on my Facebook with trollish posts from Right Wing News, Conservative Tribune, Breitbart, Fox News, and other right-wing echo chambers.
