April 12, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Ohio governor and GOP presidential candidate John Kasich criticized Mississippi’s religious freedom law in a CNN town hall event Monday.
“I read about this thing they did in Mississippi where apparently you can deny somebody service because they’re gay. What the hell are we doing in this country?” he asked.
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed the “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act” on April 4. The law says that the government cannot compel religious organizations to hire anyone whose conduct violates their religious beliefs, or force religious adoption agencies to place children in the homes of same-sex couples. It also allowed businesses to restrict restrooms and showers to members of the same biological sex.
“I may not appreciate a certain lifestyle or even approve of it, but I can—but that doesn’t mean I gotta go write a law and figure out how to have another wedge issue,” Kasich said. “We have a Supreme Court ruling, and you know what, let’s move on.”
Kasich said if he were organizing a same-sex “wedding” and came across a “deep Christian” photographer uncomfortable with participating, Kasich would go “down the street” to another photographer.
Yet he argued that bakers shouldn’t have the same conscience rights, quipping, “And frankly, if I’m selling cupcakes, why don’t I just sell a cupcake? That’s what I do in commerce. It gets to be a tricky thing about how much you involve somebody against some deeply held belief, but most of the time, I think we can accommodate one another, don’t you?”
Kasich also mentioned that he attended a same-sex wedding after the U.S. Supreme Court redefined marriage in all 50 states.
Kasich said on Sunday he “probably” wouldn’t sign a bill keeping men out of women’s restrooms. He said in February that Christian business owners shouldn’t have the same rights as churches when it comes to declining participation in same-sex “weddings.”
Gov. Bryant and others say religious liberty laws do not allow private businesses carte blanche to refuse services on the basis of sexual orientation.
They say the laws are designed to protect Christian photographers, florists, and bakers who have been fined or put out of business for refusing to take part in homosexual “wedding” ceremonies, although doing so would violate their deeply held beliefs.
Gov. Kasich said homosexuals did not need to “raise all this cane” if a particular business owner declined to participate in his ceremony.
The problem is that politicians are trying “to get publicity, which ultimately divides us.”
“We had a Supreme Court ruling,” he said, “and you know what? Let’s move on.”
Polls show Gov. Kasich coming in second in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and he has highlighted polls showing that he would beat Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head election.
“Only John Kasich is in position to defeat Hillary Clinton in November,” the Kasich campaign said.
He said he looked forward to winning the nomination at a contested Republican convention in Cleveland in August, although he will certainly not have the largest number of delegates.
“If I'm the only one who can win in the fall, why would you pick somebody else?” he asked.
