The Republican governor of Indiana wants the state to adopt hate-crimes legislation.

GOP governor advocates passage in state long resistant to it

INDIANAPOLIS — The spray-painting of a swastika outside a suburban Indianapolis synagogue this summer was the final straw for Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, who quickly called for Indiana to join the 45 states that have hate crime laws.

“It’s not only the right thing to do; it’s long overdue,” Holcomb said Friday in an interview. “I’m convinced the overwhelming majority of Hoosiers feel the same way.”

As the annual legislative session draws near, though, some warn that such a proposal could spark a cultural debate that would bring unwanted attention to the conservative state, much like the 2015 religious objections law that critics panned as a sanctioning of discrimination against the LGBT community and that drew a rebuke from big business.

“If this is a big, knock-down, drag-out, ‘RFRA-esque’ discussion, it is not going to help anyone,” said House Speaker Brian Bosma, using an acronym for 2015’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was signed into law by Vice President Mike Pence when he was Indiana governor. “We need to do it in such a way that’s not a net negative and brings undue attention to our state.”

The Indianapolis Republican helped shepherd a bill to “fix” the law through the Statehouse, steps that were taken only after businesses protested, groups vowed a boycott and the state was lampooned on late-night TV.

What remains to be seen is what sort of law might be palatable to Indiana legislators, whether it would be open-ended and general or whether it would specify characteristics that would be covered, such as race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity, which is what Holcomb wants.

While many business leaders support the governor’s call for a hate crime law and view the absence of one as a sign of intolerance, many religious conservatives, including some rank-and-file legislators, see it as an unnecessary exercise.

For years, they’ve stymied efforts to put a hate crime law on the books, arguing that judges can already consider factors such as bias when determining sentences.

“Nobody is for hate crime, but it’s a Pandora’s box,” said Ron Johnson, who leads the Indiana Pastors Alliance and believes Christians are persecuted by gay rights supporters. “It opens the door to all the rest of this craziness that we are seeing.”