“I wouldn't have signed that law from everything I know. I haven't studied it,” the GOP presidential candidate told "Face the Nation" viewers. “You just got to see what the laws are and what the proposals are and why you need to write a law. Why do we have to write a law every time we turn around in this country? Can't we figure out just how to get along a little bit better and respect one another? I mean, that's where I think we ought to be. Everybody, chill out.”
The North Carolina measure, signed into law last month by Gov. Pat McCrory (R), bars transgender individuals from using public restrooms that correspond to their gender identity and instead requires that these individuals use restrooms assigned to the sex into which they were born.
The North Carolina policy has drawn national attention, but it is only one of several legal efforts in mostly Southern states to protect the religious rights and privacy of individuals opposed to same-sex marriage and undermine efforts to explicitly expand civil rights protections to LGBT individuals, according to proponents of these measures. Opponents say the measures roll back social progress and imperil the lives of LGBT individuals and their ability to reliably operate with the same legal protections enjoyed by everyone else in the country.
Perhaps most notably, in early April, Mississippi's Republican governor signed a measure forbidding punitive action against organizations, businesses, medical providers and state employees who refuse services to LGBT individuals on religious or moral grounds. Still, lawmakers in Georgia, Virginia, Indiana and other states have passed similar measures — only to see each state's governor refuse to sign the bills into law.
At the same time, this collection of laws has prompted a counter-movement of sorts in other states. A small set of governors aligned with the Democratic Party have opted to ban all government employees from engaging in nonessential travel to North Carolina and Mississippi. That list of states includes Vermont, New York, Minnesota, Connecticut and Washington. Bruce Springsteen also canceled a planned concert in North Carolina after its governor signed the "bathroom bill" into law.
Kasich's comments on Sunday ultimately revealed a governor neither clearly opposed to nor supportive of laws like the one passed in North Carolina. Instead, he described religious institutions and organizations as probably deserving of some protection to operate according to their beliefs. But that was as far as Kasich was willing to go.
“When you get beyond that, it gets to be a tricky issue,” he said. “And 'tricky' is not the right word, but it can become a contentious issue.”