Last Call For Still Not Equal

You know what? At least North Dakota is honest about having no desire to protect LGBTQ community from discrimination. Sure, they simply pretend it doesn't exist, but hey, at least that's not using religion as an excuse.

In the wake of numerous bills bubbling through state legislatures focusing on LGBT rights, a North Dakota newspaper decided to call out the legislators who voted against a bill that would have extended anti-discrimination laws .

According to The Forum, the Fargo-based paper that published the attention-grabbing cover, the bill would have explicitly prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, but was rejected by a two-to-one vote, sparking outcry both among Democrats and the dozen Republicans who voted in its favor. Even Governor Jack Dalrymple (R), likely mindful of the recent backlash against a religious freedom law in Indiana, spoke in the bill’s favor: “I’m concerned that we have missed an opportunity to affirm what North Dakotans already believe, which is that discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation is not acceptable.”

But the bill’s opponents perceived it as largely unnecessary.

It's not discrimination, see.  It's just treating people differently from a legal, economic, employment and social standpoint because of their sexuality.

Rep. Robin Weisz, R-Hurdsfield, who carried the bill from the House Human Services Committee with an 11-2 do-not-pass recommendation, said the committee listened to a lot of testimony on the “perceived” idea that discrimination is rampant in North Dakota, but “did not receive any testimony that showed any outright discrimination going on.”

“If we’re going to add this as a protected class, we need to be sure that we’re solving a problem,” he said.

That drew a sharp response from Democrats, who referred to the more than 20 people who testified in favor of the bill, including some who traveled across the state to share stories of being mistreated at work because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

But there's no evidence.

Oh well.

Jobapalooza

Not so good numbers this month on the jobs report front.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy added 126,000 jobs in March, way less than the expected gain of 245,000 jobs.

This ends the 12-month streak of payroll gains over 200,000 and is the lowest number of monthly job gains since December 2013.

The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5% in March.

Wage growth, however, was better than expected, with earnings rising 0.3% month-on-month in March and rising 2.1% against the prior year.

The report showed that jobs gains continued to trend up in most industries, though jobs in the mining sector — which included oil-related jobs — saw a decline of 11,000 jobs in March. This sector has lost 30,000 jobs this year after adding 41,000 jobs in 2014.

Payroll gains in January and February were also revised lower, with February's gains falling to 264,000 from 295,000 and January's additions falling to 201,000 from 239,000.

Over the past three months, job gains have averaged 197,000 per month.

So 126k jobs, minus 69k downward revisions, is 57k jobs this month.

That's pretty bad.  If that's one bad month like December 2013, that's one thing.  If it's a start of a string of bad months, that's another.  We'll see how April comes in, but March was pretty sucktastic.

You Walker Right Into This One

GOP Gov. Scott Walker is showing the country once again exactly why he'll never be President as he's too macho for diplomacy, y'all.  Greg Sargent:

Today negotiators from Iran, the U.S., and other major powers announced the framework for a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program, laying the groundwork to draft a final agreement by the end of June. The preliminary deal would limit continued operation of centrifuges to one site, while converting a second one — which had been the subject of controversy — to a research facility. The Arak nuclear reactor could no longer be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

In exchange, sanctions against Iran will be lifted by the U.S. and European countries, after the International Atomic Energy Agency verifies Iran has taken those steps. It’s anyone’s guess whether a final deal will be reached, and in the interim, plenty of hard questions will be asked about it.

The 2016 GOP presidential hopefuls are all but certain to oppose the emerging framework, and Congressional Republicans (with the help of some Democrats) will probably try to scuttle any deal before it is signed. But staking out a position against the deal — and trying to sink it — could prove a bit more complicated than it appears.

This is driven home by a new interview that Scott Walker gave to a Wisconsin radio personality, in which he said that not only would he undo any deal with Iran on his first day as president; he would do so even if our European allies wanted the deal to continue.

Well, that certainly shows respect for diplomacy and our allies, especially after conservatives were screaming that President Obama showed no respect for our "ally" Israel by daring to negotiate with Iran in the first place.

I asked Peter Juul, a Mideast analyst for the Center for American Progress, to explain what the consequences of that might be. He told me:

“The big questions would be, How would Europeans and Iranians react? It’s hard to believe that the Iranians would stick to their end of the deal. That would leave Iran open to take their nuclear program as far as they want.

“The Europeans would probably try to keep their portion of the deal in place and try to salvage it. This would place the burden of having blown up the deal on us. This would be particularly ironic, considering that a major Republican and conservative talking point is that the Obama administration is breaking faith with our allies. We would be alienating and breaking faith with our European allies right out of the gate. You’d be irreparably damaging our transatlantic relationships for however long Scott Walker were in office.

“Putin is not going to leave power anytime soon, unless he keels over. For all the talk about the Russian threat, it would be odd to throw our European allies under the bus on Iran at the same time they are facing down a Russia that is not particularly friendly.

“There would be a lot of ripple effects around wherever the U.S. and Europe have security cooperation. This is a reckless, irresponsible, shoot first, don’t-ask-questions-ever approach. It’s just not a viable strategy if your goal is to keep Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.”

Remember, we're still in the primary phase of the 2016 GOP clown car game, which means there's no governance, only idiotic macho bluster.  Walker will fit right in, and he'll lose just like Republicans have for the last two presidential contests.

Course, we could just sell weapons to Iran like Reagan did, right?

StupidiNews!

• The death toll in Thursday's Al Shabaab militant attack on Kenya's Garissa University College has risen to nearly 150 according to the International Red Cross.
• Indiana GOP Gov. Mike Pence has signed a revised version of the state's "religious freedom" bill into law, that now includes some protections for gays and lesbians from discrimination.
• An initial framework of a nuclear deal has been reached with Iran as final preparations are now in place for a June 30th treaty.
• Samsung has reportedly won the rights to manufacture Apple's next iPhone chip as the Korean chipmaker is spending $15 billion to expand production.
• The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act does not apply to online streaming service Netflix as the service is not connected to an "actual, physical place".

Last Call For Smart Phones, Not-So-Smart Policy

A new Pew Research study on Americans and smartphones finds that the percentage of Americans with smartphones has almost doubled from just 4 years ago, from 36% to 64%, and that for some 20 million mostly low-income Americans, it's the only means they have of accessing the internet:

10% of Americans own a smartphone but do not have any other form of high-speed internet access at homebeyond their phone’s data plan. 

Using a broader measure of the access options available to them, 15% of Americans own a smartphone but say that they have a limited number of ways to get online other than their cell phone. 

In all, one-in-five American adults (19%) indicate that at least one of those conditions apply to them, and 7% of the public says that both of these conditions apply — that is, they do not have broadband access at home, and also have relatively few options for getting online other than their cell phone. Throughout this report, we refer to this latter group as “smartphone-dependent” users. 

So, who are these Americans who depend on their smartphones for internet access?

Certain groups of Americans rely on smartphones for online access at elevated levels, in particular: 

Younger adults — 15% of Americans ages 18-29 are heavily dependent on a smartphone for online access. 

Those with low household incomes and levels of educational attainment — Some 13% of Americans with an annual household income of less than $30,000 per year are smartphone-dependent. Just 1% of Americans from households earning more than $75,000 per year rely on their smartphones to a similar degree for online access. 

Non-whites — 12% of African Americans and 13% of Latinos are smartphone-dependent, compared with 4% of whites. 

Compared with smartphone owners who are less reliant on their mobile devices, these smartphone-dependent users are less likely to own some other type of computing device, less likely to have a bank account, less likely to be covered by health insurance, and more likely to rent or to live with a friend or family member rather than own their own home.

If I were a Republican strategist, I'd suddenly have a desire to make it a lot harder to own a cell phone without an address, background check, bank account and credit card.

But I'm being cynical of course

Our Home And Native Slam

If businesses are having issues with states like Indiana and Arkansas's open bigotry towards the gay community, it seems our neighbors to the north want to remind everyone that things are a bit less nasty over the border.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who is openly gay, is urging businesses upset by a so-called religious objections law in Indiana to set up shop in her province. 

The Indiana law, which takes effect July 1, does not specifically mention gays and lesbians, but critics say it is designed to protect businesses and individuals who do not want to serve gays and lesbians. 

Wynne says it's completely unacceptable that in the twenty-first century such a "discriminatory law" would be in place and would be used to divide people and create hostility. 

She says she'll raise the controversial law with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence if he attends this year's meeting of Great Lakes governors and premiers. 

Wynne says Ontario does "a fair bit of trade" with Indiana, and while she didn't threaten to curtail that business, she did urge companies looking for a more open, non-discriminatory jurisdiction to consider her province.

You know what?  More power to Canada on this.  Yeah, it's far from perfect, bigotry and racism towards members of the First Nations is a problem (not to mention against the African-Canadian population of cities like Toronto) but socially the folks next door are still way ahead of the politicians running the show down here.

It's just another reminder that we don't live in a vacuum here.  People around the world see the kind of things Republicans are pulling here in the US these days and they're responding to it.

Arkansas Governor Gets Pence-ive

Seems Arkansas GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson isn't waiting around to get the full Gov. Mike Pence treatment over the "religious freedom" legislation passed this week by the legislature in Little Rock, and is wisely not signing the bill.

Until it's "revised" of course.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says he does not plan to sign the religious freedom bill that sits on his desk right now, instead asking state lawmakers to make changes so the bill mirrors federal law. 

The first-term Republican governor said he wants his state "to be known as a state that does not discriminate but understands tolerance." 

His decision comes in the wake of an uproar in Indiana, where Gov. Mike Pence has faced pressure from businesses, sports associations like the NCAA and popular culture figures to backtrack on a similar religious freedom law he signed last week. In Arkansas, it's been Walmart applying the most pressure. 

Hutchinson asked lawmakers to recall the law that the Arkansas House had given final approval on Tuesday -- or to send him follow-up legislation that makes the changes he requested. 

Meanwhile, Hutchinson said, he's considering signing an executive order that bars discrimination among the state's workforce. 

"The issue has become divisive because our nation remains split on how to balance the diversity of our culture with the traditions and firmly held religious convictions," Hutchinson said. "It has divided families, and there is clearly a generational gap on this issue."

It's nice for Hutchinson to remember who really runs things in The Natural State.

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, has asked Republican Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson to veto a bill critics say would open the door to discrimination against members of the LGBT community.

Wally World didn't want any trouble, so I'm sure the Governor got his orders to punt.  We'll see what shape the final bill takes, but my guess is that in less than three months, this isn't going to be too much of an issue anyway, thanks to the Supreme Court.

StupidiNews!

• Kenya is reeling this morning from an armed assault on a university by Al Shabaab militants, leaving as many as 15 dead, dozens wounded, and several hostages taken.
• The death toll in deadly floods in Northern Chile along the Copiapo river has reached 24, with more than 60 missing, leading President Michelle Bachelet to cancel a summit trip to Panama.
• California Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered the nation's toughest water restrictions to be put in place as the Golden State's 4-year drought continues with no relief in sight.
• Extended all-night nuclear talks with Iran have still not yielded a deal, prompting both sides to reconsider continuing in light of Tuesday's missed deadline.
• More than 40 US tech firms have signed a letter to the Human Rights Campaign urging lawmakers across the country to extend civil rights protections to LGBTQ groups.

Last Call For Jersey Bob

Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey officially got the hammer dropped on him this afternoon by the feds.

New Jersey U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez has been indicted on federal corruption charges in connection with an ongoing investigation into his business dealings with a Florida doctor, according to a district court clerk familiar with the case. 

Menendez, a Democrat, has held office since 2006. Specific charges in the grand jury indictment weren't immediately available and Menendez's office couldn't immediately be reached for comment. 

Previously, both Menendez and the doctor, Florida optometrist Salomon Melgen, have denied wrongdoing. It wasn't clear if Melgen was also charged in the indictment. Representatives for the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI declined comment.

The expected indictment of Menendez follows a months-long investigation into his relationship with Melgen. The senator has admitted he accepted free private plane trips from Melgen, including a 2008 trip to the luxury resort of Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic. Menendez claimed to have later repaid almost $70,000 for his trips on the doctor’s jet.

Doesn't look good for him at this point, although it's a bit harder to shame a US Senator into resignation rather than a mere Representative (Hey, David Vitter's still going strong, right?)

We'll see what happens, but with Gov Chris Christie itching to pull the ol' "Appoint a Republican then wait as long as possible to hold a special election" trick again and a GOP controlled Senate, I'm betting there's not going to be a deep well of support for keeping Menendez in office on the part of Republicans with a federal indictment hanging over his head, especially an indictment from a Democratic administration.

I expect things will happen quickly.

But We Would Never Do That

In a press conference yesterday, Indiana GOP Gov. Mike Pence blamed the media and Obamacare for the backlash against the state's new religious freedom law, vowing that Hoosiers would never discriminate openly like that.

Gov. Mike Pence pledged Tuesday to "fix" Indiana's controversial religious freedom law to clarify that it does not allow discrimination against gays and lesbians. 

But he insisted the problem isn't the law itself but how it's being perceived, saying a fix is needed only because of "frankly, the smear that's been leveled against this law."
And he said the fix won't involve statewide anti-discrimination protections for LGBT Hoosiers. 

The first-term Republican governor sought to tamp down the backlash Indiana has faced since he signed the law -- which its in-state supporters had claimed would allow businesses to turn away LGBT customers -- last week. He said he's asking state lawmakers to send him a followup measure before this week's end to ensure that's not the case. 

"It would be helpful to move legislation this week that makes it clear that this law does not give businesses a right to deny services to anyone," Pence said in a press conference in Indianapolis on Tuesday.

See, we don't need to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination they'll never face in Indiana, right?

A small-town pizza shop is saying they agree with Governor Pence and the signing of the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The O'Connor family, who owns Memories Pizza, says they have a right to believe in their religion and protect those ideals.

“If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no,” says Crystal O'Connor of Memories Pizza.
She and her family are standing firm in their beliefs.

The O'Connor's have owned Memories Pizza in Walkerton for 9 years.

It's a small-town business, with small-town ideals.

“We are a Christian establishment,” says O'Connor. 

The O'Connor family prides themselves in owning a business that reflects their religious beliefs. 

“We're not discriminating against anyone, that's just our belief and anyone has the right to believe in anything,” says O'Connor.

Refusing to cater a gay wedding because the people getting married are gay isn't discrimination at all, see.  Memories Pizza says it would never refuse service to a gay customer, just refuse to cater a gay wedding.  So the new law doesn't allow discrimination.  Case closed!

Good job, Indiana!

National (Job) Security Agency

In a post-Dudebro Defector world, nobody wants to work for the NSA anymore because ILLEGAL SPYING.

Daniel Swann is exactly the type of person the National Security Agency would love to have working for it. The 22-year-old is a fourth-year concurrent bachelor's-master's student at Johns Hopkins University with a bright future in cybersecurity. 

And growing up in Annapolis, Md., not far from the NSA's headquarters, Swann thought he might work at the agency, which intercepts phone calls, emails and other so-called "signals intelligence" from U.S. adversaries. 

"When I was a senior in high school I thought I would end up working for a defense contractor or the NSA itself," Swann says. Then, in 2013, NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked a treasure-trove of top-secret documents. They showed that the agency's programs to collect intelligence were far more sweeping than Americans realized. 

After Snowden's revelations, Swann's thinking changed. The NSA's tactics, which include retaining data from American citizens, raise too many questions in his mind: "I can't see myself working there," he says, "partially because of these moral reasons."

Partially, huh.  And what's the rest of the reason?

Ever since the Snowden leaks, cybersecurity has been hot in Silicon Valley. In part that's because the industry no longer trusts the government as much as it once did. Companies want to develop their own security, and they're willing to pay top dollar to get the same people the NSA is trying to recruit. 

Students like Swann. Last summer Microsoft paid him $7,000 a month to work as an intern. The company even rented him a car. 

"It was actually really nice," Swann says. "It was a Subaru Legacy."

Oh.

Well then.

Yeah, I mean if Microsoft is going to offer you six figures and a Subaru to be a student intern in InfoSec, it's not like the NSA is going to be able to compete with that.  Kinda nice then that the whole morals thing isn't quite as important as that Silicon Valley paycheck so you can afford that place in San Francisco down the line.

Conveniently neat how that works out in the absolution department considering how big companies want their white hats to figure out how to use all that customer information as best they can.  You know, totally unlike the NSA.

Once again, if your major goal was long-term, lasting, amybe even generational damage to the US intelligence community and to the NSA in particular, you could not have done a better job than what Dudebro Defector did.

StupidiNews!

• Retired general Muhammadu Buhari, who ruled Nigeria 30 years ago as a military dictator, has been elected peacefully as Nigeria's new President, defeating incumbent Goodluck Jonathan.
• Wal-Mart is calling on Arkansas GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson to veto the state's religious freedom bill which passed the state Senate yesterday and is very similar to the one in Indiana.
• Nuclear talks with Iran have been extended for another day as both sides have agreed to keep talking past yesterday's deadline as long as talks remain "productive".
• Los Angeles police are investigating the death of Andrew Getty, the 47-year old grandson of J. Paul Getty and heir to the Getty family oil fortune.
• The Obama administration has submitted a framework to cut carbon emissions to meet UN climate goals by 2030 using the Clean Air Act, but the plan is being immediately opposed by the GOP.

Last Call For Go Home Dinosaur Steve, You're Drunk

Gov. Steve Beshear has done a lot for Kentucky, frankly.  But the one issue where he has absolutely embarrassed himself and the state on repeatedly has been same-sex marriage, and he did it again this week.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear says the state's ban on gay marriage should be upheld in part because it is not discriminatory in that both gay and straight people are barred from marrying people of the same gender. 

In an argument labeled absurd by gay marriage advocates, Beshear's lawyer says in a brief filed last week at the U.S. Supreme Court that "men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, cannot marry persons of the same sex" under Kentucky law, making the law non-discriminatory. 

The argument mirrors that offered by the state of Virginia nearly 50 years ago when it defended laws barring interracial marriage there and in 15 other states, including Kentucky, by saying they weren't discriminatory because whites were barred from marrying blacks just as blacks were barred from marrying whites. 

The Supreme Court in 1967 rejected that argument in the historic case of Loving v. Virginia, in which Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, a black woman, were charged with a crime for marrying.

If this sounds like that this is the most mind-numbingly stupid defense of same-sex marriage bans that you've ever heard, well that's because it is.  The man took this idiocy to the Supreme Court on behalf of his constituents.  You know, like me.

Steve, you're a moron.  Jack Conway cannot replace you quickly enough.

Sit down.

Giving Them The Iran Around

Americans want a nuclear deal with Iran, they just don't trust Iran to hold up their end of the bargain.

By a nearly 2 to 1 margin, Americans support the notion of striking a deal with Iran that restricts the nation’s nuclear program in exchange for loosening sanctions, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds. 

But the survey — released hours before Tuesday’s negotiating deadline — also finds few Americans are hopeful that such an agreement will be effective. Nearly six in 10 say they are not confident that a deal will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, unchanged from 15 months ago, when the United States, France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia reached an interim agreement with Iran aimed at sealing a long-term deal.

Naturally, party affiliation plays a big role here.

Popular sentiment among Republicans is more in line with GOP lawmakers on the issue of whether Congress should be required to authorize any deal with Iran. A Pew Research Center survey released Monday found 62 percent of the public believes Congress, not President Obama, should have final authority over approving a nuclear agreement with Iran. 

Republican Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.), the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, and other lawmakers are building bipartisan supportfor a bill that would require Obama to submit an Iran agreement for congressional approval blocking the removal of sanctions on the Islamic republic for 60 days. The bill would require a veto-proof majority to force Obama’s hand. 

Americans’ views on Iran have been shaped by deep worry over the prospect that it could develop nuclear weapons but also a hesitance to employ military force in an attempt to prevent that outcome. A February Gallup poll found more than three-quarters of the public thinks the development of nuclear weapons by Iran would pose a “critical threat” to the United States over the next 10 years. Yet fewer than three in 10 said Iran’s nuclear program — which it insists is for peaceful purposes — requires military action now in a CBS News poll last week; more than four in 10 said the threat can be contained for now and just under two in 10 said Iran is not currently a threat.

So Iran's a major threat and will have nukes in ten years but nobody wants to send their kids to fight and die to stop them, even though a diplomatic deal is something that most Americans believe is impossible.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Indiana Pence And The Backlash Of Doom, Con't

Republicans and pundits alike are arguing that Indiana's "religious freedom" law is no different from the federal law that a Democratic Congress and President Clinton passed in 1993, and no different from the Illinois state law that Democrats, including State Senator Barack Obama, voted for and passed in 1998.

But as Judd Legum at Think Progress points out, that is false.  Indiana's bill goes much further than the 1993 federal law or any other state law:

There are several important differences in the Indiana bill but the most striking is Section 9. Under that section, a “person” (which under the law includes not only an individual but also any organization, partnership, LLC, corporation, company, firm, church, religious society, or other entity) whose “exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened” can use the law as “a claim or defense… regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding.” 

Every other Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies to disputes between a person or entity and a government. Indiana’s is the only law that explicitly applies to disputes between private citizens. This means it could be used as a cudgel by corporations to justify discrimination against individuals that might otherwise be protected under law. Indiana trial lawyer Matt Anderson, discussing this difference, writes that the Indiana law is “more broadly written than its federal and state predecessors” and opens up “the path of least resistance among its species to have a court adjudicate it in a manner that could ultimately be used to discriminate…” 

This is not a trivial distinction. Arizona enacted an RFRA that applied to actions involving the government in 2012. When the state legislature tried to expand it to purely private disputes in 2014, nationwide protests erupted and Jan Brewer, Arizona’s Republican governor, vetoed the measure. 

Thirty law professors who are experts in religious freedom wrote in February that the Indiana law does not “mirror the language of the federal RFRA” and “will… create confusion, conflict, and a wave of litigation that will threaten the clarity of religious liberty rights in Indiana while undermining the state’s ability to enforce other compelling interests. This confusion and conflict will increasingly take the form of private actors, such as employers, landlords, small business owners, or corporations, taking the law into their own hands and acting in ways that violate generally applicable laws on the grounds that they have a religious justification for doing so. Members of the public will then be asked to bear the cost of their employer’s, their landlord’s, their local shopkeeper’s, or a police officer’s private religious beliefs.”

Again, the bottom line is that every other state version of this law, and the federal law Clinton signed in 1993, protects private citizens' religious beliefs from the government.  The Indiana law is the only one that applies to disputes between private citizens.  It's that second part, the aforementioned Section 9 of the law, that specifically opens up the Pandora's Box of discrimination and says that a private citizen's religious beliefs can trump another private citizen's actions and allows them to use the law as legal cover to do so.

That's the difference.  The law is a blanket permission to discriminate, plain and simple.  It's effectively a Stand Your Ground defense law for bigotry.  If you choose to discriminate against someone, you can claim the law as a defense if you feel your "exercise of religion is substantially burdened."

Oh, and Section 9 also defines person in this case as "not only an individual but also any organization, partnership, LLC, corporation, company, firm, church, religious society, or other entity" as Legum mentions up there.  You can imagine what this can mean.  If Indiana's Hobby Lobby locations wanted to refuse to serve LGBTQ customers on religious grounds, then they could theoretically claim this law as a defense and say that allowing them to shop there would "substantially burden" their "exercise of religion".

Indiana's law is particularly awful, hence the backlash.  The legal difference is the clause that allows the law to be claimed as a defense in disputes between private citizens.

I'm expecting that part to be challenged in court.  For now, it's being challenged in the court of public opinion. The front page of the Indianapolis Star:

We are at a critical moment in Indiana's history. 

And much is at stake. 

Our image. Our reputation as a state that embraces people of diverse backgrounds and makes them feel welcome. And our efforts over many years to retool our economy, to attract talented workers and thriving businesses, and to improve the quality of life for millions of Hoosiers. 

All of this is at risk because of a new law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, that no matter its original intent already has done enormous harm to our state and potentially our economic future. 

The consequences will only get worse if our state leaders delay in fixing the deep mess created. 

Half steps will not be enough. Half steps will not undo the damage. 

Only bold action — action that sends an unmistakable message to the world that our state will not tolerate discrimination against any of its citizens — will be enough to reverse the damage. 

Gov. Mike Pence and the General Assembly need to enact a state law to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, education and public accommodations on the basis of a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.

Good luck with that, Indiana.  You elected Republicans.  This is what Republicans do.