Arkansas governor's son thrust into spotlight over religious freedom bill

Seth Hutchinson, who helped persuade his father to back down over the controversial bill, tells the Guardian the result was thanks to ‘a lot of people stepping up’

Demonstrators gather in Little Rock during a press conference by the Human Rights Campaign following governor Asa Hutchinson’s comments on the bill. Photograph: Andrea Morales/Getty Images

Ben Jacobs

Thursday 2 April 2015 01.58 BST Last modified on Thursday 2 April 2015 07.29 BST

A lot of people have back and forth discussions with their parents on political issues. But it’s rare that it becomes national news.
Seth Hutchinson is a union organiser in Texas and the son of the Arkansas governor, Asa Hutchinson. On Saturday, Seth emailed his father about his opposition to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which was then under consideration by the state legislature.

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Opponents claim that the bill, which passed the legislature on Tuesday, allows businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians on religious grounds. Supporters of the bill say it simply mirrors federal law that prevents the government from “substantially burdening” a person’s exercise of religion unless there is a “compelling interest.”
Seth Hutchinson told the Guardian that he “sent an email [to his father] and told him I was planning on signing the petition [opposing the bill]. The Arkansas governor read the email and “gave a very thoughtful response back” and told his son that he very much appreciated his thoughts. Seth Hutchinson didn’t hear anything more on the subject until Wednesday morning.
Then, just an hour before Asa Hutchinson was to hold a press conference where he asked the legislature to make changes to the bill, the Arkansas governor called his son and asked if it was all right to use his name, explaining he had influenced his decision not to sign the bill. After the younger Hutchinson said it was fine, a media storm erupted following the conference.
Although the Hutchinson family has long been involved in state politics – prior to serving as governor, Asa Hutchinson served in Congress and as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration and his brother Tim served one term in the US Senate – this is the first time, in Seth ’s words, “our public lives have crossed paths”. While the younger Hutchinson is far more liberal than much of his family and they often have polite disagreements over politics, it’s always been behind closed doors.

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Asa Hutchinson is sending the Religious Freedom Restoration Act back to the legislature for a rewrite.

As the debate over the bill continues, Hutchinson is loath to take any credit for his father’s decision to seek to revise the bill. He maintained, “this is happening because a lot of people took action, a lot of people stepped up the plate.”
He said there’s been “a movement of folks and that’s what we need not just on LGBT issues but on economic, social and environmental issues as well.” Hutchinson went on to point out that “LGBT equality is becoming a very popular idea ... because people stepped up when they were in the minority and stepped against some pretty intolerant policies and things got changed.”

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However, while all the attention and publicity has been “overwhelming,” Hutchinson has tried not to let it distract him from his day job working with Texas state public employees to fight what he called “bad stuff” being proposed in the Lone Star state’s legislature.
The result of the busy legislative session is that Hutchinson won’t make it home to continue this conversation with his father over Easter dinner.
However, he’ll be back in Arkansas over the summer where he’ll almost certainly end up continuing to talk politics with a father whom he may not always see “eye to eye” with but who he loves very much.