Agreed! Additionally, Pence's capitulation will have far-reaching impacts. The shrill voices from the left will become louder when they are selectively outraged over future issues, the media reporting will be more breathless, and political calculus will be more complex for future legislation. Pence will live with this.
Walker v. Pence - a study in contrasts during a political earthquake.
What is happening here is exactly what is supposed to be happening. A contentious issue is working its way (and being worked out) through the laboratory of the States. It just needs to get to the SCOTUS to be resolved.
Anti homosexual sodomy laws were struck down (because they should have been) by Lawrence.
The government's attempt at forcing businesses owned by individuals with strong religious objections to providing abortifacients to employees was struck down by Hobby Lobby.
The issue of same-sex marriage will be decided very shortly with four cases on the docks scheduled for hearings sometime this April.
In both Lawrence and Hobby Lobby, the SCOTUS, whether you agree with the outcome of the cases or not, sided with the rights of individuals over the rights of the collective. I expect the same outcome for the same-sex marriage cases. I believe that same-sex marriage will be legal in all States by the end of this year.
Should one of these "baker won't bake me a wedding cake because i'm gay so I'm suing him" cases goes before the SCOTUS. I think that the SCOTUS will look at all the facts, weigh the rights of the baker and the rights of the gay couple and come up with the most logical response which safeguards both the baker's rights (religious liberty) and the gay couple's rights (the State's compelling interest to eradicate discrimination as well as not allowing any class of citizen to be treated as second class citizens) and find the least restrictive means to resolve the conflict.
What is driving this issue is religious opposition to homosexuality being codified.
We've written laws and statutes against homosexual sex, voted and enacted referendums making same-sex marriage illegal, and (in the case of Indiana) crafted a law which makes it legal and to deny service to homosexuals with impunity, based on religious objection to homosexuality.
It's like we (or a segment of we) is trying to make homosexuality non-existent in our society. That ship has sailed, and the more laws we enact trying to suppress homosexual behavior, the closer we get to having the Court grant legal protected status to sexual preferences.
I understand and respect the religious objections, but I also understand and respect the objections of some who don't think that they should be forced to accept a second-class citizenship because of laws based on religious beliefs that they themselves may not believe in. "Why should I be governed by someone else's religious beliefs" is a perfectly acceptable question to ask in a free society.
Having said all that, I believe that the homosexual activists will lose this battle if it ever reaches the SCOTUS, since the SCOTUS, in their need to find a balance between the State's compelling needs to both not promote discrimination and respect the religious beliefs of its citizens, will simply see that the cake can be baked elsewhere, by someone who does not object to baking it.
What's ironic here, is that the Court may work its way back to a general religious exemption case that was overturned by the SCOTUS with Scalia and Rehnquist leading the majority charge. They were right (in my opinion) when they argued that a general religious exemption based on the free exercise clause would have a veritable spectral march of subsequent demands for religious exemptions from anyone, and the prospect of constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind, including antidiscrimination law. Case in point, Bob Jones University (I visited that place in the '70's, so I KNOW what this was all about) wanted a religious exemption from race discrimination laws so that they could keep blacks out of their campus (Bob Jones Unioversity vs. The United States (1983).
This will work itself out. It just needs to get to the SCOTUS.