John Kasich: I would not have signed a trans bathroom bill into law
Republican Presidential hopeful John Kasich has said he would not have signed a transgender “bathroom bill” into law.
The Ohio Governor commented on a number of bills passed recently, and which were signed into law in North Carolina and Mississippi.
Speaking to John Dickerson on Face the Nation, Kasich said: “I believe that religious institutions ought to be protected and be able to be in a position of where they can live out their deeply held religious purposes.”
“But when you get beyond that it gets to be a tricky issue. And tricky is not the right word, but it can become a contentious issue,” he said.
“In our state, we’re not facing this, so everybody needs to take a deep breath, respect one another, and the minute we start trying to write laws, things become more polarized, things – they become more complicated,” he continued.
“Obviously I don’t want to force people to violate their deeply held religious convictions, but we’d have to see what that’s all about. I wouldn’t have signed that law from everything I know, I haven’t studied it.”
Georgia’s Governor Nathan Deal recently vetoed a similar bill to that passed into law in Mississippi and North Carolina. The latter two states are facing threats of boycotts from big businesses.
Bruce Springsteen has been celebrated for standing up to North Carolina’s law, by pulling out of a concert set to take place in Greensboro.
Kasich is third in the Republican nomination race, having secured only 147 delegates, compared to Ted Cruz’s 532 and Donald Trump’s 743.
In February, he stood firm on same-sex marriage – despite nearly all his rival candidates planning to overturn it – saying he would not.
He also split from his rivals on LGBT rights – by coming out in favour of anti-discrimination laws.
