Connecticut governor: Mike Pence is a 'bigot'

Mike Pence is a bigot, according to one of his fellow governors.

“When you see a bigot, you have to call him on it,” Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”


Malloy, the incoming chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, on Monday signed an executive order banning state-funded travel to Indiana in response to a “religious freedom” law signed last week by Pence. Critics say the law, known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, would allow businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians; Pence insists it’s meant only to protect religious communities from government encroachment on their civil rights.

“The reality is, the governor’s not a stupid man — but he’s done stupid things,” Malloy said. “Signing this law and, quite frankly, promoting this law knowing exactly what it was going to do was an incredibly stupid thing for him to do.”

The law’s aim was to discriminate, Malloy argued, noting that two of the people present at the bill’s signing have campaigned against same-sex marriage and have compared homosexuality to beastiality.

“When it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck,” Malloy said. “They knew what they were doing and what they were doing was deciding that they were going to make it legal to refuse to serve gay men and women.”

Malloy added that he felt Pence had “miscalculated terribly” how the law would be received and said the law shows “outright bigotry in Indiana.”

Pence has defended the legislation in interviews, saying he abhors discrimination and claiming that the media have misrepresented his intentions. But in a news conference Tuesday, he called for a “legislative fix” to the law to make it clear that the law does not allow for discrimination.