A restaurant owner in Indiana called into a local radio station’s morning talk show to profess his support for the new anti-gay law passed in his home state this week, and even bragged about all the times he has happily discriminated against gay people.

Indianapolis morning radio talk show Kyle & Rachel on RadioNOW 100.9 asked listeners Friday morning to call in with their thoughts on Indiana’s new “religious freedom” law.

That’s when Ryan called in to the show and said that he began discriminating against gay customers even before Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a bill into law on Thursday protecting business owners who decide to discriminate against any person for “religious liberty” reasons. He then defended the practice and suggested he would do it again.

Ryan, who refused to give the name of his business, said he had lied to some LGBT “people” saying some equipment was broken in his restaurant and that he could not serve them even though other people were already eating at the tables. “So, yes, I have discriminated,” he told RadioNOW 100.9 hosts. The show’s hosts were surprised by the owner’s blatant discrimination.

“Well, I feel okay with it because it’s my place of business, I pay the rent, I’ve built it with all my money and my doing. It’s my place; I can do whatever I want with it, “he said. “They can have their lifestyle and do their own thing in their own place or with people that want to be with them.”

ThinkProgress adds:



The law has been highly controversial in the state, with many businesses — including the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and Apple — saying they were disappointed in the law’s passage and some entities saying they would ban travel or future business in the state thanks to the law’s enactment. Pence himself has tried to defend the law as not a means of discriminating but rather protecting religious freedom, but these claims run counter to text of the legislation, and in fact how this anonymous business owner seems to interpret it. The governor signed the law in a private ceremony on Thursday, and wouldn’t say who attended the signing ceremony. Other states are considering following Indiana’s lead. A similar bill is currently being debated in Georgia. Nineteen other states, including nearby Kentucky and Illinois, have adopted religious liberty laws. These laws try to codify some of what was established when the Supreme Court ruled in the Hobby Lobby case last year, in which a craft store chain objected to covering certain types of birth control for its female employees on religious grounds even though the Affordable Care Act mandated that women must receive birth control coverage without a co-pay as part of its minimum standards of care.

Listen to the raido interview below:

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Hillary Clinton has condemned Indiana’s “religious freedom” law, writing on Twitter: “Sad this new Indiana law can happen in America today. We shouldn’t discriminate against ppl bc of who they love.”

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff took a bold stand against Indiana, announcing on Twitter this week that he has canceled “all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination” and threatened the state with a “slow rolling of economic sanctions” if the law is not thrown out.

Earlier this week, the organizers of one of Indiana’s biggest conventions threatened to move his event to another state if Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed the bill into law. GenCon LLC chief executive officer Adrian Swartout sent a letter to Gov. Pence reminding him of the convention’s history of serving “a diverse attendee base, made up of different ethnicities, cultures, beliefs, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities, and socio-economic backgrounds.”



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[Photo Credit: Nomadic Lass]