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Late last week, the Arizona Legislature passed a controversial bill that would allow business owners to hide behind “religious beliefs” and deny service to gay and lesbian customers. This means if a business owner even assumed someone was gay or lesbian, they could deny them service and have them legally removed from the premises — all in the name of “religion.” The bill passed by a 33-27 margin and now heads to ultra conservative Republican Gov. Jan Brewer (a former small business owner), who has expressed support of business owners to deny service.
“I think anybody that owns a business can choose who they work with or who they don’t work with,” Brewer said on Friday. “In my life and in my businesses, if I don’t want to do business or if I don’t want to deal with a particular company or person or whatever, I’m not interested. That’s America. That’s freedom.”
Naturally, not everyone agrees with Brewer or her Republican cronies.
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On Friday, the LGBT group Wingspan staged a 200 person protest march to the governor’s office, carrying signs that read “God created us all equal” and “Shame on Arizona.” Also, Tucson-based Rocco’s Little Chicago Pizzeria posted a photo on its Facebook page of a sign with a message for state lawmakers: “We reserve the right to refuse service to Arizona legislators.”
“It’s a ridiculous bill,” pizzeria manager Evan Stevens said. “Arizona has much bigger problems than allowing businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians.”
In a letter to Brewer, the Greater Phoenix Economic Council urged the governor to veto the bill, saying the “legislation will likely have profound, negative effects on our business community for years to come.”
“The legislation places businesses currently in Arizona, as well as those looking to locate here, in potentially damaging risk of litigation, and costly, needless legal disputes,” council President Barry Broome wrote, adding that 4 unidentified companies have vowed to relocate elsewhere if the legislation is signed. “With major events approaching in the coming year, including Super Bowl XLIX, Arizona will be the center of the world’s stage. This legislation has the potential of subjecting the Super Bowl, and major events surrounding it, to the threats of boycotts.”
Robert Boston, a spokesman for the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the legislation would “fling the door wide open to discrimination, not just against gay people, but basically to any class of individuals that a religious fundamentalist decides he or she doesn’t want to deal with.”
He added, “A woman who is pregnant out of wedlock, for example, ‘Well, out the door, you don’t get served in my business.’ “
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The main force behind the discriminatory bill is The Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative group opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage. They’ve taken to their Facebook page urging concerned citizens to convince Gov. Brewer to sign it, saying in a statement “As we witness hostility towards people of faith grow like never before, we must take this opportunity to speak up for religious liberty. The great news is that SB 1062 protects your right to live and work according to your faith.”
Cathi Herrod, the center’s president, added, “The Arizona bill has a very simple premise, that Americans should be free to live and work according to their religious faith. It’s simply about protecting religious liberty and nothing else.”
Do religious zealots really have a right to discriminate all in the name of their religious beliefs? Or is this all a bunch of negative bullshit that should be squashed instantly before it gets too far out of hand?
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gays and lesbians on the basis of religious beliefs.
I'm not surprised by this since it's Arizona. They're always behind the times in there thinking anyway. But no way this can be legal. The feds already have laws against discrimination that a state can't change just because they want to. I don't see this going anywhere.