Here we go again. The Arizona Legislature, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to pass a “religious freedom” bill making legal discrimination against doing business with anyone who doesn’t comply with a person’s religion. This was in response to a lawsuit filed in New Mexico over a wedding photographer who refused to photograph a gay wedding. Notice that Arizona was not mentioned in the previous sentence.
The Arizona legislature has a history of going against common sense, and of passing laws without getting input from the people of Arizona.
“Those who know what’s best for us, will rise and save us from ourselves.”
– Rush from Witch Hunt
It’s pretty clear that the people of Arizona are overwhelmingly against this becoming law. Businesses oppose SB 1062. Senator John McCain and ultra-conservative Senator Jeff Flake both urged the governor to veto this bill.
The people of Arizona will be heard. A small but vocal minority are the few who want to live under a theocracy. The rest of us think the United States Constitution is a pretty good document under which to run a country. You know, that’s the one that says all men are created equal. Nowhere does it say all men are created equal except the gays and the blacks and the Mexicans and the Jews. You may be a Bible-thumping Christian, but you share the same rights as everyone else in this state. That of freedom, that of equal protection under the law, that of the pursuit of happiness-you can’t take those away from other people. Period.
Passing this bill would make it legal to discriminate against not only the LGBT community, but also those who practice other religions. We saw a Sikh shot right after 9/11 because he was mistaken for a Muslim, and a small-minded monkey-brained Neanderthal decided vigilante justice against an innocent human being was a good idea. This bill is a slippery slope, but we won’t slide down it.
SB1062 is a Jim Crow law, and we don’t do Jim Crow laws in the United States anymore. We learned from the mistakes of our ancestors, at least everyone except the Arizona GOP. The outcome will be Supreme Court cases and the law being struck down as unconstitutional on so many levels. But the people of Arizona, that super-majority who want a veto, those are the people who will pay to defend the law with tax dollars. Allowing this bill to become law is a catastrophe in the making.
This is not the first time Arizona tried to ramrod blatantly unconstitutional or just plain stupid laws down our throats. SB1070 was clearly unconstitutional. We don’t do internal passports in the US. That was the USSR. The Supreme Court has pretty well dismantled SB1070. Another bill Jan Brewer had the wisdom to veto would have allowed firearms on college campuses, something college professors and students were overwhelmingly against. I mean, what could possibly go wrong there? The slap in the face was this bill made it to Brewer’s desk just days after Gabby Giffords was shot.
Jan Brewer, I urge you to listen to the majority of Arizonans and kill this bad idea dead, dead, dead. I have not seen any poll with less than a super-majority urging veto. Please prevent this horrible mistake from manifesting. Veto SB1062 / HB 2153, and do it soon.
