By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In the wake of the State of Indiana passing into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act—a law crafted to allow businesses to curtail services to customers based upon religious objections—Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and later Governor Jay Inslee issued executive orders prohibiting government funded travel of employees to Indiana in protest.
The proffered reasons of these executives is to voice protest in that Indiana’s statute is incompatible with either state anti-discrimination laws or is in alignment with the political values of these local governments.
Orders of this type are actually counter to the idea of sovereignty of each state and interfere with the judicial, executive, and legislative processes that are inherently reserved to the voters and citizens of, in this case, the state of Indiana.