When news of Indiana’s so-called “religious freedom” law came to light earlier this week, the internet quickly began asking the question: What would proud Indiana residents Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson think of the state’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act?


Thankfully, Nick “Ron Swanson” Offerman is around to answer tough questions like that. Offerman asked Parks And Recreation creator Michael Schur to sketch an answer out for him, and read that answer at a show last night in Bloomington, Indiana. (This was the show he did for charity after canceling his upcoming Indianapolis show in protest.) At the show (and in the cruddy video below), Offerman read a statement from Schur that rails against the bill, calling it “a carefully worded, expertly constructed document that reminds gay, lesbian, and transgendered people that they are second class citizens.” Schur-via-Offerman also goes into the arguments the ever-proactive Knope would have made against the bill, including the effects of ’60s racial discrimination, the Declaration Of Independence, and the fact that people still need food to eat and homes to live in, for crying out loud. Swanson, on the other hand, would have hated the bill “because it was made by the government.”

Schur’s whole eloquent transcript is below, as is the barely discernible but still audible footage of Offerman reading it aloud.