NEW ORLEANS — Hours after a committee in the Louisiana Legislature effectively voted down a bill that would explicitly protect people and businesses that do not want to participate in same-sex marriage, Governor Bobby Jindal issued an executive order Tuesday to accomplish much of what the bill had set out to do.
“We don’t support discrimination in Louisiana and we do support religious liberty,” the governor said in a statement. “These two values can be upheld at the same time.”
Critics, including liberals and even some conservatives, as well influential business leaders, were sharply critical of the governor’s position, dismissing it as an attempt to court conservatives nationally in advance of his probable presidential run.
“It’s a cynical attempt to deflect from the failures of what should be the top legislative priority, what we’re dealing with every day, which is a broken state budget,” state Senator Karen Carter Peterson, a Democrat, said in a speech on the floor Tuesday. She noted that Jindal has been appearing in an ad in Iowa in which he discusses his views on religious liberty.
The governor announced the formation of an exploratory committee for a 2016 presidential run earlier in the week.
More: www.bostonglobe.com
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