Just a week ago,
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was just beginning to see the momentum building against
his state for passing a bill that made it safe for
businesses to discriminate if they hid behind their religious
beliefs. Now Indiana lawmakers are trying their best to make believe that nothing ever really happened because they “fixed” the law.
The
speed with which the change took place proves that even a bad bill can lead to
good results. Homophobia was always a feature of the Indiana law (and the Arkansas law), not a bug. Yet with its passage,
the Indiana law led to major changes in the conversation about LGBT rights,
changes that can’t be revoked.
Here are five ways that the landscape is now
changed thanks to the bad motives of Indiana legislators…
1. Nondiscrimination protections are now
the floor, not the ceiling. Getting a nondiscrimination bill passed
in a state like Indiana was always an uphill battle. Now it’s a given in the
media and the national conversation that the lack of workplace and housing
protections is considered an oversight at minimum and more likely a
scandal. There’s no need to justify the need for protections. It’s the
absence of them that needs justification.
2. Even
homophobes have to prove they aren’t discriminating. That’s why Indiana Republicans had to
insert language (absurd as it may be) that explicitly states that the religious
freedom law can’t be used to deny services. It’s a subtle, but major shift: the need to swear you never intended to
discriminate against LGBT citizens. In the past, no one would have felt obliged
to say as much, even as lip service. (Of course, let’s not forget that
discrimination was the whole point of the bill in the first place.)
3. The “special rights” rhetoric is
dead. For the longest
time, granting the LGBT any kind of protection was termed “special rights.” No
one used that rhetoric this time around. If anything, the Indiana law looked
suspiciously like special rights for the religious right–which, of course, it
was.
4. North Dakota (!). Just to prove how much the landscape
changed in just a week, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple felt the need to send a
memo to state offices saying thatgovernment discrimination against anyone is illegal. Dalrymple is trying to hold back
a push by Democrats for an executive order specific to protecting the LGBT
community. It’s impossible to imagine having that debate in North Dakota just a
few weeks ago.
5. Big business has spoken with one
voice. Apple, Wal-Mart,
Salesforce, Angie’s List, Lilly, Cummins–the array of corporations that
came out against the Indiana law and for nondiscrimination protections proved
once and for all that big business is firmly in favor of LGBT rights. More
to the point, they are willing to put political muscle behind it and fight the
GOP, even though they are often allied with the party on economic issues.
You
can argue of course that it’s all about image and protecting themselves against
financial fallout, but corporations don’t throw their political weight around
lightly. It’s one thing to sign a letter in
favor of marriage equality. It’s another to lean on a political
ally in advance, the way Wal-Mart didwith Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison.
We’ll
be feeling the ripple effect of the Indiana law for a long time. It’s certainly
going to be an issue in the 2016 GOP presidential campaign, as conservative
evangelicals press candidates to swear their allegiance to religious liberty
exemptions. But one thing is for certain. It’s not going to be the same
conversation we were having before the Indiana law
passed.
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