"I don't know how it all works, okay?" said last-placer John Kasich at a campaign appearance that was supposed to demonstrate his mastery over issues facing the country.
He was responding to questions at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, a sort of open-mic night for rich people, and a gay guy had just peppered him with questions about a variety of queer issues. The Q&A started with "Do you believe that some people are born gay? ... Please respond without prayer being an answer."
Kasich's response began"we'd all be better off in this country if we prayed more"— good one, John, that'll play well with the San Francisco crowd. He continued to grapple for other sounds that are words: "You know, sir, probably. I mean, I don't, I don't know how it all works, okay? I mean, look. Are they? You know, probability they are. Okay?"
And then, he was accidentally honest.
As a politician, Kasich will never give an truthful or direct response to any question. And so he tried to pivot to the anti-queer bills being debated and passed around the country: "I don't believe in discrimination. I think there is a balance, however, between discrimination and people's religious liberties," he said.
You know what? That's not really what the guy asked about, but I have to give John credit for stumbling across an accurate assessment of that balance. He's right that whenever you prioritize "religious liberties," then "discrimination" will necessarily follow. Right now, the focus is on the "religious liberty" to kick trans people out of bathrooms; fifty years ago, it was on how "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and ... the fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." There is also, you may have heard, great religious interest in preventing women from having autonomy over their bodies.
So yeah, Kasich made a good point about the inherent cruelty of faith. It's just probably not the point he meant for us to land on.
"But I think we should just try to, like, take a chill pill, relax," he added, apparently speaking to us from a sixth-grade classroom in the year 1992. "And try to get along with one another a little bit better instead of trying to write some law to solve a problem that doesn't frankly exist in big enough numbers to justify more lawmaking."
Oh hey another accidental good point! Not about the chill pill, but trying to get along with one another. That would be nice. "I don't see any reason to hurt you or to discriminate you or make you feel bad or make you feel like a second class citizen," Kasich added, and for a moment it's like, hey man, that's pretty cool, maybe you should run for the Board of Supes in SF?
Except that Kasich also said he's opposed to marriage equality, voted to prevent queer couples from adopting kids, said that he opposes the "gay lifestyle," opposed health care for domestic partners, supported discharging soldiers for being gay, supported laws that imprison people for being gay, blah blah blah.
So I guess there's one more accidentally-accurate point that Kasich made: "we'd all be better off in this country if we prayed more." Yup, if we prayed that John Kasich would go away and leave us alone.