Arnold Schwarzenegger blasts fellow Republicans for Indiana anti-gay law

Arnold Schwarzenegger blasts fellow Republicans for Indiana anti-gay law

The former California governor said Republicans are growing increasingly out of touch with Americans, and urged them to change directions on the issue.

Movie star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has slammed his fellow Republicans over the recent controversial passage of an Indiana law that many argue legalizes anti-gay discrimination.

In an op-ed column for the Washington Post, Schwarzenegger said he was “furious” at the law and said his fellow Republicans were “losing touch” with Americans, according to an Independent report.

The new law, which created a firestorm of criticism nationwide as conservatives defended the law as guaranteeing religious freedom, “[flies] in the face of equality and freedom,” Schwarzenegger opined.

Schwarzenegger has joined a growing list of celebrities to speak out against the law, including presumed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Miley Cyrus, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Ricky Gervais, the last of whom said in a tweet that “same sex marriage isn’t gay privilege, it’s equal rights,” and quipped that being privileged would mean something like gays not paying taxes, “like churches don’t.”

Schwarzenegger said that he knew plenty of Republicans who were sensible and believe in “Reagan’s vision of a big tent where everyone is welcome.” He added that his column was directed at the other Republicans: those “who choose the politics of division.”

Schwarzenegger governed a state that had the controversial Proposition 8 campaign, an effort to ban gay marriage that many Republicans supported. Federal courts eventually shot down Proposition 8, and judges across the nation have been striking down anti-gay statutes left and right in recent years.

There is a large pocket of support for the Indiana law among conservative Christians. As an example of that, Memories Pizza in Walkerton, which received notoriety recently for claiming it would deny service if they were asked to cater a wedding, received a huge amount of online donations that is approaching $1 million to help pay the bills as they stayed closed for the duration of the controversy.

Governor Mike Pence signed the bill into law last week, but some changes have already been drafted for the law after the outburst of anger nationwide.

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