White House Can't Explain Difference Between Indiana Law and One Obama Backed

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest balked when asked Sunday how the Indiana religious freedom law opposed by President Barack Obama differs from a similar law Obama voted for when he was a state senator in Illinois.

Earnest appeared on ABC's "This Week" immediately following Indiana's Republican Gov. Mike Pence on Sunday and was asked about the issue.

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"If you have to go back two decades to try to justify something that you're doing today, it may raise questions," Earnest told host George Stephanopoulos.

"It should be easy for leaders to stand up and say, it's wrong to discriminate against people just because of who they love," Earnest continued.

But National Review's Patrick Brennan on Sunday afternoon called that a "weak, unserious argument."

Obama has said his views on same-sex marriage have "evolved," and National Review notes that politicians do change some of their views over time, but Brennan argues that if Obama believes Indiana's law is wrong, he should support all the previously existing state laws like it.

But Obama isn't, and neither is anyone else, Brennan notes, arguing that the "hysteria" over religious-liberty laws is a "sham."

"They don’t protect or encourage any noticeable level of discrimination against homosexuals; they just provide assurances that the power of the state can’t be brought to bear to make citizens violate their consciences," he writes. "The laws seem to have succeeded at that, which is why their existence hasn’t aroused any controversy."

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