Rick Santorum appeared on CBS’ Face of the Nation on April 5, where he discussed Indiana’s religious freedom law. Santorum argued that Indiana’s original law would have offered only limited protections to religious liberty in the workplace even before changes to it were approved:
I was hoping [Gov. Pence] wouldn’t [change the language in the bill]. I think the language that he had is better language. This is acceptable language. I voted for this language so I certainly can’t say that it’s a bad bill. It’s a good bill, but it doesn’t do a lot of the things—it doesn’t really open the debate up on some of the more current issues. I think the current language that the federal law is and now Indiana is has been held pretty much to have a pretty limited view of what religious liberty—religious freedom—is in the workplace. And I think we need to look at it as religious liberty is now being pushed harder to provide more religious protections and that bill doesn’t do that.
I think what we need to look at is: we aren’t for discrimination against any person. I think that no business should discriminate because of who you are. But it should have the ability to say, ‘We’re not going to participate in certain activities that we disagree with from a certain religious point of view.’ I don’t think, frankly, that either bill does that, but the second one—the one that Gov. Pence backed away from—moves toward that.
