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John Kasich Condemns "Religious Liberty" Laws: "Everybody Chill Out, Get Over It"

"Why do we have to write a law every time we turn around in this country?"

Ohio Gov. John Kasich is the only Republican of the three current GOP nominees for president who has publicly condemned North Carolina's wildly transphobic new bathroom bill, implying the law serves no essential purpose because there was no actual problem that needed a legislative fix to begin with.

Asked by Face the Nation host John Dickerson on Saturday about legislation in Mississippi and North Carolina that forbids transgender people from using restrooms that do not match their gender assigned at birth, and whether he'd have signed a similar bill into law in his state, Kasich replied "probably not."

"We are not having this issue in our state about this whole religious liberty," he said, taking aim at the new trend of legislation designed to to allow those with "sincerely held religious beliefs" to discriminate against others.

He continued: "I believe that religious institutions ought to be protected and be able to be in a position of where they can– they can, you know, live out their– 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."

"Everybody needs to take a deep breath, respect one another, and the minute we start trying to write laws things become more polarized, they become more complicated, 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."

Kasich went on to applaud Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, who recently vetoed a similar bill that would have legalized LGBT discrimination in his state.

"Why do we have to write a law every time we turn around in this country?" asked Kasich. "Can’t we figure out just how to get along a little bit better and respect one another? I mean that’s where I think we ought to be. Everybody, chill out, get over it if you have a disagreement with somebody."

h/t The Advocate

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