Governor Pence a civil rights crusader?

Indiana Governor Mike Pence said his state is the victim of a media smear.

“The smear here against the bill is it created a license to discriminate.”

He’s right. As written, the new Religious Freedom law says nothing about discrimination against gay people. But it has called attention to Indiana’s civil right statutes, which clearly do allow gay discrimination.

Indiana does protect its gay public employees; those protections don’t apply to private businesses. It’s why the governor couldn’t bring himself to answer that question from George Stephanopoulos Sunday.

“Do you think it should be legal to discriminate against gays or lesbians?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“George…”

“It’s a yes or no question,” Stephanopoulos said.

He couldn’t answer because – except in cities like Indianapolis which have local laws against gay discrimination – a baker or a florist is perfectly free to tell a gay person to leave. As is also the case in 29 other states.

So objectively speaking, to bash Indiana, and not beat up on, for example, Mississippi, which has zero legal recourse even at the local level, is unfair.

But unfair or not, judging from his news conference Tuesday, Governor Pence is now a civil rights crusader.

“No one should be harassed or mistreated because of who they are, who they love or what they believe,” Pence said. “I believe it with all my heart.”

Clearly, if Governor Pence ran a bakery, he’d cheerfully provide a gay couple all the dessert they could eat.

He also seemed to be on the verge of requiring others to do the same, which was the last thing the Indiana Legislature was expecting when it passed that bill.