GOP Presidential Candidate Suggests Christians Should ‘Pray For’ Same-Sex Couples

Republican Gov. John Kasich on Sunday told LGBT people who face discrimination they should just get over it. The third-place GOP presidential candidate who is the sitting governor of Ohio also told people of faith who oppose same-sex marriage and LGBT people to “pray for” them. Both comments were made under the guise of uniting the nation.

CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” asked Kasich if there areÂ any steps he “would take to try to stop states from passing” anti-LGBT, so called “religious freedom” laws. The Ohio governor responded, “No, I wouldn’t,” then admitted that he hadn’t even “thought about” it.

“There is a legitimate concern for people being able to have their deeply held religious beliefs, religious liberty,” Kasich continued. “But there’s also people who we shouldn’t be discriminating against. We need to have a balance,” he insisted. Â Â

“I just wish that everybody would just take a breath and calm down, because, you see, trying to figure out how to legislate that balance is complicated, and you keep doing do-overs, because nobody gets it right,” he admitted.Â

“So if we would just kind of calm down here, I think things would settle down. And what I like to say is, ‘just relax.'”

“If you don’t like what somebody’s doing, pray for them,” the governor suggested. “And if you feel as though somebody is doing something wrong against you, can you just, for a second, get over it, you know, because this thing will settle down.”

He went on to call the fight for equal civil rights for LGBT people “a wedge issue that can be exploited by people on both sides,” and concluded that “we need a united America, not a divided America. As one of my daughters said, ‘We’re the United States, not the divided states.'”

Watch:

LGBT people still face discrimination, many on a daily basis. Housing discrimination, credit discrimination, employment discrimination, public accommodationsÂ discrimination like North Carolina Gov. McCrory just enshrined into law, and other types of discrimination are still prevalent today.

Positions like Governor Kasich’s are what continue to divide this nation. “Get over it” is not a solution. In his own home state of Ohio, there is no statewide law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Kasich did sign an executive order making sexual orientation discrimination illegal, but there is also not hate crimes law that includesÂ sexual orientation and gender identity.

And, of course, Obergefell v. Hodges, the lead Supreme Court case that ultimately struck down bans on same-sex couples marrying originated in Governor Kasich’s state of Ohio during his tenure.

Â

Image: Screenshot via CNN