Ohio Gov. John Kasich says the rights of people who want to avoid participating in same-sex weddings should be respected but he believes Mississippi's recently passed law allowing private businesses and public employees to deny rights to gay people goes overboard.
"I'm a traditional marriage guy," Kasich said Monday in a town hall event on CNN, "but, I went home one day, I said, 'Sweetie, we've been invited to a gay wedding.' … She said 'I'm going, I don't know if you are or not.' And we went."
While he still believes marriage is between a man and a woman, Kasich said people should try to be understanding of each other.
"What are we going to do, write a law?" he said. "I read about this thing they did in Mississippi where apparently you can deny somebody service because they're gay. What the hell are we doing in this country?"
North Carolina passed a similar law recently as well.
"I may not appreciate a certain lifestyle or even approve of it, but that doesn't mean I've got to go write a law and try to figure out how to have another wedge issue," Kasich said, adding that some politicians are using the issue only to get publicity.
"We had a Supreme Court ruling," he said, "and you know what, let's move on."
A photographer who has a deep Christian faith that would have him object to attending a gay wedding should be allowed to bow out, he said.
"I might go down the street to another photographer," he said. "Why do I need to raise all that Cain about this?"
But, he added, "if I'm selling cupcakes, why don't I just sell a cupcake? That's what I do in commerce."
The issue gets "tricky" when figuring out how much someone should be forced to go against their deeply held beliefs, Kasich said. "But most of the time, I think we can accommodate one another, don't you? … We can accommodate one another even when we can have profound differences."
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