The likely 2016 presidential hopeful went from support for ‘anti-gay’ legislation to championing non-discrimination after a backlash made the governor rethink

Anti-discrimination activists and gay rights groups welcomed a lightning evolution by Jeb Bush, this week on a controversial law passed in Indiana last week that opponents said would have made it easier for businesses to discriminate against LGBT employees and customers.

On Monday, Bush praised the law as signed by Indiana’s governor, Mike Pence. On Wednesday, the former Florida governor and likely 2016 presidential candidate drew back sharply in his approbation, conceding only that the law would “be in the right place” by the end of the week, after an anticipated fix by the Indiana legislature.

Bush’s original remarks were made on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, whose core audience comprises the kind of hard-right conservatives who tend to vote in primary elections. Bush’s second remarks were made in Palo Alto, California, at a Silicon Valley fundraiser.

As a probable candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Bush could face a hazard that dogged the party’s last nominee, Mitt Romney, who was accused of saying one thing to appease conservative primary voters and then changing his message for the general election. The recent pair of Bush statements, however, suggests that in his case, the process may be significantly accelerated.

Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry, said Bush’s first remarks were “terrible” and “out of synch with the majority of American voters who stand strongly in support of protecting gay and lesbian people from discrimination”.

The Bush remarks two days later, however, weren’t bad, Solomon said.

“The question about Bush is, now that he has said that he opposes discrimination against gay people, is he going to make those words meaningful by backing federal [non-discrimination] legislation,” Solomon told the Guardian.

Legislation signed by Pence on 26 March established that the state could not “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” except in cases of a “compelling government interest”. While the governor contended that the statute mirrored a 1993 federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, legal scholars warned that the Indiana law differed from the federal law in ways that specifically increased the risk of discrimination.

On Hewitt’s show, Bush leapt to the defense of the law, saying critics did not understand what it said.

“I think if you, if they actually got briefed on the law that they wouldn’t be blasting this law,” Bush said. “I think Governor Pence has done the right thing.”

Bush’s low assessment of the critics of the Indiana law was echoed by fellow Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina in remarks published on Thursday.

“I honestly believe this is a set of liberal political activists who practice a game of identity politics and divisive politics to whip people into a frenzy,” Fiorina was quoted as saying by USA Today. “I think it’s very destructive to the fabric of this country.”

A day after Bush’s original statement, Pence held an awkward, 35-minute news conference in which he decried “the smear that’s been leveled against this law and the people of Indiana”, which he said was “deeply offensive to me as a Hoosier”. He announced a fix to the law, devised with the Republican legislative leadership and to be passed as soon as possible, to provide anti-discrimination safeguards, even though the original law did “not give anyone a license to discriminate”, he said.

Bush was asked about his defense of the law at a fundraiser at the East Palo Alto Four Seasons on Wednesday night, reported the New York Times, which obtained an audio recording.

“By the end of the week, I think Indiana will be in the right place, which is to say that we need in a big, diverse country like America, we need to have space for people to act on their conscience, that it is a constitutional right that religious freedom is a core value of our country,“ the Times quoted Bush as telling the California crowd.

But “we shouldn’t discriminate based on sexual orientation”, Bush said.

Solomon welcomed the latest Bush line.

“I think what he was reported to have said about non-discrimination is significant,” Solomon said. “If he stands by it.”