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Sunday, April 5, 2015
Andrew Cuomo resassures Indiana that
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MARTINSVILLE,
Ind. — Michelle Crafton, the owner of a tiny bakery in this struggling
town 30 miles south of Indianapolis, is not sure what she would do if
asked to cater a same-sex wedding.
Ms.
Crafton, 42, is a churchgoing Christian who believes homosexuality is a
sin. But she also has a gay cousin — “I’ve loved him ever since he was a
kid,” she said — and if she did say no to a gay couple, she would
struggle over a polite way to tell them.
As
the debate over a law promoted as defending religious freedom but
criticized as anti-gay convulsed Indiana last week, Ms. Crafton might be
excused for also being unclear about whether it would give her the
legal right to refuse such service. She and other supporters of the law
had hoped that it would.
But
on Thursday, after an outcry from business leaders, Gov. Mike Pence, a
Republican, signed a revised version clarifying that the law could not
be used to justify discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender
identity.
If Ms. Crafton was sure of one thing, it was that all of the national attention had given Indiana a black eye.
Photo
Chuck Brewer, above, a Republican running for mayor in Indianapolis, saw an economic risk.Credit
Jessica Ebelhar for The New York Times
“I
just don’t like that they say we’re intolerant,” she said Thursday from
behind a counter stocked with pastel Easter cookies and red velvet
cupcakes. “Because that’s not who we are.”
Though
the people of Indiana have been starkly divided over the law and its
possible effect on gay residents, there is a more general agreement here
that the raging debate — fanned by the large corporations that have
objected to the law, national interest groups and out-of-town news media
— has tarnished the state’s reputation for magnanimity and reflexive
friendliness.
“ ‘Hoosier hospitality’ has been a phrase that I’ve heard my whole life,” Stephanie Dolan, a journalist, wrote recently in NUVO Newsweekly,
an Indianapolis alternative paper. “It’s hokey and it’s corny, and — if
you’re easily annoyed like me — it’s a bit off-putting in its
sappiness. But there was never any mistaking its sincerity.”
“Now?” she added. “I can only think of that phrase ironically.”
The
perception that the law had created an unwelcoming atmosphere was
shared by a number of business-oriented conservatives. That has been
particularly true in Indianapolis, the state capital, which in recent
years has emerged from a postindustrial slump into a period of urban
renewal built in large part on the convention industry, big sporting
events — like the Final Four of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament this weekend — and an emerging technology sector.
Business-friendly policies certainly played a part, but so did a carefully tended message that Indiana welcomed the world.
Chuck
Brewer, 43, who owns a sandwich shop near the city’s convention center
and is running for mayor in Indianapolis as a Republican, said the law
was “not an encouraging move by the legislature to attract business and
conventions and investment in Indiana.”
“It’s
hard to have something like this ruin the reputation of a state and
city that have tried so hard to be welcoming,” he said.
But as rapidly changing attitudes toward same-sex marriage
have swept across a state still largely defined by the slower rhythms
of rural life, some friction may have been inevitable. A number of
residents interviewed here seemed to be living on the cusp of tradition
and change, and harboring opinions too complex for placards.
Cody
Button, 22, who is gay and works at a lawn and garden center in
Indianapolis, recalled starting his high school’s first
lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender group a few years ago, after he was
criticized by faculty for kissing a boy in the hallway. But when it came
to the religious exceptions bill, he was torn.
“It
makes me feel for Indiana, all the businesses that are backing out,”
Mr. Button said. But he also said he understood why business owners
might want the legal system to protect them if they refused to serve gay
customers on religious grounds. He noted that a friend’s father, who
runs an environmental remediation company, faced a similar situation
recently when asked to do a job for a satanic church.
Inside
Ms. Crafton’s bakery in Martinsville, David Trout, also a Christian who
supported the law in its original form, said he had once vowed never to
attend a same-sex wedding. But a few months ago, Mr. Trout, 55, found
himself saying yes when a lesbian couple who are friends invited him to
their ceremony.
“I saw how happy they were together,” he said. “At the wedding, I hugged everybody. I’m a hugger.”
On
the other side of the town square Thursday, Ryan Colwell, 41, a
Pentecostal Christian and the owner of the restaurant Cafe 166, was
sporting a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt and preparing specialties from a menu
that includes barbecue chicken pizzas and portobello mushroom
sandwiches.
Mr.
Colwell said he also catered weddings and had been consulting with his
pastor to work out a plan if he was ever asked to cater a same-sex
wedding, which he feels his faith precludes him from condoning.
“I would cater a gay wedding,” he said, but only if he could drop the food off “and leave, and not have to stay and observe.”
Mr.
Colwell said he also supported the original version of the law because
he thought it would give business owners the right to deny services if
delivering them offended their religious sensibilities. The revisions
disappointed him.
“To
me, it’s almost repealing the law without repealing it,” he said. “It
hurts me to know that if I take a stand on an issue based on my
religious convictions, that I’m labeled as a discriminator, and I’m just
not.”
Ms.
Crafton said she supported gay couples’ right to have their
relationships recognized under the law. And despite her religious
reservations, she said she might cater a same-sex wedding if she felt
comfortable with the couple.
“It comes down to the people,” she said.
She
said she would never turn away gay customers who walked into her store,
unless they were excessively rude. But that, she said, applied to
everyone.
In
the more diverse and gay-friendly capital, many said the law had always
struck them as the height of rudeness. Some characterized it as a
solution in search of a problem.
Enza
Papalia, 69, a native of Italy who immigrated to the United States in
1963, laid into Mr. Pence on Thursday afternoon from behind the counter
at J. Papalia Tailoring, a renowned Indianapolis shop established by her
husband.
“What
is he trying to prove?” she said in a voice still redolent of her
native land. “What’s the point? Is anything good going to come out of
this?”
Carl
Levinson, a software engineer and friend who was visiting for lunch,
said Indiana had been “unfairly criticized” for the controversy.
“I’ve just been embarrassed by this whole thing,” he said.
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