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This morning, when Donald Trump made history by tweeting the announcement that Indiana Governor Mike Pence would be his vice presidential pick, any non-politicos out there may have turned to one another and asked, “Who?” Although Pence represented his state in Congress from 2001 to 2013 before he took office as governor, he lacks the name recognition of the other top contenders for the spot like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
But before you go on believing that Pence might be a real-life Leslie Knope, here are a few of his most shocking quotes that prove he’s anything but a champion of the people.
“Um… I, do I believe in evolution?”
In 2009, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked Pence a straightforward question about his views on evolution. Pence stumbled over an answer, offending Darwin and the entire scientific community in the process: “Um… I, do I believe in evolution? Ah, I, I, ah… I embrace the, uh — the, uh — the view, ah, that God created the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that’s in them.”
“Smoking doesn’t kill.”
In 2015, Buzzfeed dug up a quote from Pence’s 2000 Congressional campaign site, in which he blamed the “hysteria” about lung cancer on “the political class and the media.” Meanwhile, there is absolutely no dispute in the scientific community about the effects of smoking on health and the lungs. In fact, study after study confirms that smoking is the single biggest cause of cancer around the world. But Pence explained:
"I don't know that [climate change] is a resolved issue in science today.”
In 2014—just two years ago—Pence made this claim, arguing that there is no evidence that climate change is manmade. 97% of climate scientists disagree with him. And about 92% of scientists overall disagree as well.
"In the state of Indiana, marriage is recognized as between a man and a woman, and I think that's how it should remain.”
Despite the huge swell of voters who avidly disagree with this assessment, and the nation’s profound cultural shift over the past decade towards the legalization of gay marriage, Pence is still not on board. In 2014, he used this line while talking to MSNBC’s Chuck Todd. In fact, his attitude towards LGBTQ rights overall has been hostile: In 2015 he signed a law that allowed business owners to discriminate against gay couples and Pence also signed an open letter claiming that the left’s labelling of anti-gay rights organizations as “hate groups” is “intolerance pure and simple.”
“Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexual’s as a ‘discreet and insular minority’ entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities.”
Another find from his 2000 campaign website, Pence not only urged lawmakers not to consider members of the LGBTQ community as minorities deserving of a protected status, but he also asked that funds be redirected "toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior." In other words, don’t help persecuted gays and send them to potentially devastating “therapies” as punishment for their behavior.
Watch Gaby Hoffmann Play Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street:
Source: http://www.glamour.com/story/5-ridiculous-things-donald-trumps-vp-pick-has-actually-said-out-loud
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