After landing in the news for his spat with Maine's Tea Party governor, bestselling author Stephen King made another foray into politics on Monday night, blasting Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which provides a legal shield for individuals and businesses who refuse services to LGBT people on religious grounds.
King -- who lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana for part of his childhood -- took to Twitter to colorfully express his vehement opposition to the law, which GOP Gov. Mike Pence signed last week:
[embedtweet id=582706860236525568]
Following an outpouring of business opposition and popular protest, Pence announced Tuesday that he would seek a legislative "fix" to the law, which he asserts does not provide a license to discriminate. It is unclear what form that fix will take, however, and given that the law's purpose is to provide a legal defense for individuals not to take actions they claim "substantially burden" their religious beliefs, there's ample reason to be skeptical that the law will not be wielded by religious conservatives to justify anti-LGBT discrimination. While the law provides discriminators with a compelling legal defense, LGBT Hoosiers have no recourse of their own, as Indiana lacks a law banning anti-LGBT discrimination.
King's criticism of the law comes as he finds himself embroiled in a dispute with Republican Maine Gov. Paul LePage, who falsely suggested earlier this month that King, a longtime resident of Maine, had abandoned the state and no longer paid taxes there. King demanded that LePage apologize for his falsehood, but LePage has refused, defying King instead to make him the villain in his next book.
(h/t Huffington Post)
Shares