Updated Thursday, February 27 at 12:10 p.m.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would have permitted business owners to use religious beliefs as a reason to refuse service to gay couples. In defense of her decision, Brewer said she hasn’t heard of a single instance in Arizona where a business owner’s religious liberty was violated.Â
Original post
The Arizona State Legislature’s bill that would allow business owners to refuse to serve same-sex couples is proof that there is no longer a far right; there is no longer any limit or boundary to what is extreme right ideology. It’s gone. Kaput.
There’s no limit to how far fundamentalists will go to use religion as justification to impose their values on everyone else.
Though reports have surfaced suggesting that Arizona’s Republican governor, Jan Brewer, will veto the bill – which even some of its original backers have abandoned – I’m curious. What’s she waiting for?
Both of Arizona’s Republican US senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, have come out against the bill. So have the state’s Chamber of Commerce and about a dozen major US companies.
And certainly some conservatives must be concerned how legislation like this would impact upcoming national elections, especially those who have their eyes on taking back the US Senate.
If Brewer signs the bill into law, how would it be enforced? How would business owners know if two men or women entering an establishment constitute a gay couple? Do they just look the customers over and make a wild guess or can they make an assumption based on profiling?
It wasn’t long ago that gay men often wore different colored handkerchiefs in their rear pants pockets as a secret way of communicating with other gay men. There was an elaborate code that went with the handkerchiefs. If you wore it in the left pocket, it meant one thing. If you wore it on the right, it meant another. Blue, red, and black handkerchiefs each had their special significance.
Maybe it’s time to dig out those hankies, again.Â
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2014.
This misleading post stands the truth on its head. Rather than allowing anybody to “impose their values on everyone else,” SB1062 does precisely the opposite: In line with the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by Bill Clinton, this reasonable one-page law simply requires the state to avoid forcing someone to violate his conscience unless it is to further a “compelling governmental interest” and there is no less restrictive way to do so.
This country was founded on freedom of conscience, a bedrock human right. To be an American means to be able to form one’s own convictions, to follow the dictates of one’s own conscience, and to live out one’s faith, entirely free of any coercion by king or state.
SB1062 says nothing about sexual orientation, or any other class or category. With respect to sexual orientation, it would only apply to the four cities in the state that have non-discrimination provisions based on sexual orientation (in the rest of the state, it would have no effect at all relative to sexual orientation).