8 things you really didn't want to know about vice presidential nominee Mike Pence

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (left)
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (left)
Image: michael conroy/ap

After months of mostly meaningless speculation, the answer has finally arrived: Donald Trump has chosen Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be his vice presidential running mate. 

Though Pence has served both in Congress and in the Governor’s office, he’s not particularly familiar to the American public. Those with intact long-term memories might remember him as the "anti-gay, pro-pizza rights" governor who didn't really want to learn  about women's periods and who once called himself "Rush Limbaugh on decaf."

But trust us, there’s more.

Though Pence previously supported Ted Cruz in the GOP race, his propensity to say absurd things makes him a good pairing with Trump. From gun control to health care, he’s managed to touch many hot topics over the decade.

Here’s a selection of some of Pence's more embarrassing verbal missteps and actual thoughts. 

1. Whoops! Pence doesn't actually agree with Trump and has called his views 'offensive.'

As a running mate, it's important that the two candidates are on the same page. Trump may have some work ahead of him given what Pence previously said about Trump's anti-Muslim immigration stance. 

While Trump was riding a wave of post-San Bernardino anger with his proposal to ban Muslims entrance into the U.S., Pence spoke out against the move, calling it "offensive and unconstitutional."

Trump hasn’t budged on his stance so it’ll be interesting if Pence will have to. 

2: He wanted to defund programs that helped people with HIV and redirect the money to gay conversion therapy.

Pence's 2000 campaign website included something known as the Pence agenda, which supported "an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus."

Instead, Pence wanted to redirect funds "toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior," including, potentially, gay conversion therapy. 

In 2015, a spokesman for the CDC reported that Indiana had one of the "worst HIV outbreaks among IV [drug] users in the past two decades."

3. He voted to keep guns in public school parking lots. 

Like many Republicans, Pence has been staunchly pro-gun and has done his best to enact legislation to protect gun rights. In 2014, he signed a bill that would allow parents (and others) to keep guns locked in their cars in school parking lots. At the time, a spokeswoman for Pence said: 

"Governor Pence believes in the right to keep and bear arms and that this is a common sense reform of the law that accomplishes the goal of keeping parents and law-abiding citizens from being charged with a felony when they pick their kids up at school or go to cheer on the local basketball team."

In January 2016, Pence backed more gun bills, including one that would make carrying a firearm legal on the state's college campuses. And another bill would make it easier for repeated alcohol offenders to obtain a firearm. 

4. A 'one man crusade' against abortion rights, Pence signed some of the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation in a decade.

In March of 2015, Pence signed a bill that banned abortions motivated by fetal abnormalities, and required that all fetuses be "interred or cremated by a facility" regardless of the fetus' age. 

In response, a group of women who were inspired by Pence's "sudden interest" in their bodies organized a "Periods for Pence" protest, and began to call his office and leave stories about their menstrual cycles on his voicemail.

Needless to say, Pence was not pleased. 

5. Pence once compared Obamacare to 9/11. 

While Pence hasn’t followed Trump down the "birther" rabbit hole, he has caused a stir with extreme views on President Obama's health care legislation. 

Perhaps the most well-known example is from June 2012 when, as a congressman, he compared the Supreme Court's upholding of the Affordable Care Act to the terror attacks on September 11th during a closed-door meeting. 

What, exactly, he said is unknown but word got around fast enough that he was forced to issue an apology, saying, "My remarks at the Republican Conference following the Supreme Court decision were thoughtless. I certainly did not intend to minimize any tragedy our nation has faced and I apologize."

6. He supported a bill that made it legal for people to deny pizza to customers on the basis of their sexuality.

Governor Pence is best known for his support of the "Religious Freedom Act," a bill that nominally protected people's right to religion, but informally allowed businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexuality. 

The bill caused a national uproar when one small-town Indiana pizza shop, Memories Pizza, disclosed that as a result of the act, they would refuse to cater gay weddings. Pence later signed a revised version of the bill in 2015.

7. Governor Pence compared Baghdad to a flea market in Indiana.

Any governor is going to stand up for his state so one can't fault Pence for touting how great the state of Indiana is. But comparing your state to an unstable Middle East country where suicide bombers are a regular occurrence isn't the best way to go about that. 

In 2007, Pence, still a congressman, was part of a group of GOP lawmakers who paid a visit to Shorja, Iraq in an attempt to show support for then-president Bush’s "surge" in the country. That's when Pence compared Baghdad to Indiana: 

"We milled around this marketplace in downtown Baghdad for more than an hour. I told reporters afterward that it was just like any open-air market in Indiana in the summertime. I didn’t mean that Baghdad was as safe as the Bargersville Flea Market; I just meant that that was what it looked and felt like… lots of people, lots of booths and a friendly relaxed atmosphere."

The comment came just months after dozens were killed in a deadly car bombing. Of course, in the years since then, the nature of the conflict in Iraq has changed, but the deadly violence hasn't. Among many suicide bombings Baghdad has seen in the years since Pence's visit, Shorja was hit with deadly bombings in May 2014, July 2014, and February 2015.  

8. And finally, he opposed hate crimes legislation on the grounds that it would discriminate against people who wanted to discriminate.

In 2009, Mike Pence opposed the Matthew Shephard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which would have expanded hate crime legislation to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability. 

Pence opposed the legislation on the grounds that pastors could "be charged or be subject to intimidation for simply expressing a Biblical worldview on the issue of homosexual behavior." 

Instead of expanding state and local agencies to prosecute murders like Matthew Shephard (who was tortured and murdered for being gay), Pence chose to defend the rights of people who wanted to discriminate. 

Donald Trump and Governor Pence: a match made in presidential heaven.

