Arizona lawmakers are already feeling the heat after passing Arizona Senate Bill 1062, which
would legalize discrimination:
Senate Bill 1062 re-defines and expands the state's definition of "exercise of religion" and "state action" to protect businesses, corporations and people from lawsuits after denying services based on a sincere religious belief.
According to the bill, "A person whose religious exercise is burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or a defense in a judicial proceeding, regardless of whether the government is a party to the proceeding."
Over the weekend, at least one Arizona Republican who voted for the bill began
expressing regret:
Sen. Steve Pierce, R-Prescott, who previously had been Senate president, told Capitol Media Services Sunday he now thinks the legislation, billed as providing protections for those of faith, is a bad idea. That is significant since Pierce provided one of the 17 votes that got it out of the Senate last week.
“I screwed up,” he told Capitol Media Services. “I’m trying to make it right.
Arizona tourism officials have also begun to sound the alarm. To put it plainly, this type of discrimination would be very bad for business:
Glenn Hamer, president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, also said Sunday Brewer should kill the bill as bad for business.
And Kristin Jarnagin, vice president of the Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association said just the fact that the Legislature approved the measure has resulted in cancelled trips.
“We have already lost untold amounts of tax dollars due to the negative perception that this legislation attaches to our state’s image, and the bill hasn’t even been signed into law yet,” she said. Her organization wants Brewer to deep-six the measure “so that we can put this behind us swiftly and continue the business of welcoming visitors to Arizona.”
George Takei took to his large social media audience (more than 6 million fans and counting on Facebook) to threaten long term boycott of Arizona if Governor Brewer signs the bill.
From That Blog Is So Takei:
February 21, 2014
By George Takei
Dear Arizona,
Congratulations. You are now the first state actually to pass a bill permitting businesses–even those open to the public–to refuse to provide service to LGBT people based on an individual’s “sincerely held religious belief.” This “turn away the gay” bill enshrines discrimination into the law. Your taxi drivers can refuse to carry us. Your hotels can refuse to house us. And your restaurants can refuse to serve us.
Kansas tried to pass a similar law, but had the good sense to not let it come up for a vote. The quashing came only after the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and other traditional conservative groups came out strongly against the bill.
But not you, Arizona. You’re willing to ostracize and marginalize LGBT people to score political points with the extreme right of the Republican Party. You say this bill protects “religious freedom,” but no one is fooled. When I was younger, people used “God’s Will” as a reason to keep the races separate, too. Make no mistake, this is the new segregation, yours is a Jim Crow law, and you are about to make yourself ground zero.
This bill also saddens me deeply. Brad and I have strong ties to Arizona. Brad was born in Phoenix, and we vacation in Show Low. We have close friends and relatives in the state and spend weeks there annually. We even attended the Fourth of July Parade in Show Low in 2012, looking like a pair of Arizona ranchers.
The law is breathtaking in its scope. It gives bigotry against us gays and lesbians a powerful and unprecedented weapon. But your mean-spirited representatives and senators know this. They also know that it is going to be struck down eventually by the courts. But they passed it anyway, just to make their hateful opinion of us crystal clear.
So let me make mine just as clear. If your Governor Jan Brewer signs this repugnant bill into law, make no mistake. We will not come. We will not spend. And we will urge everyone we know–from large corporations to small families on vacation–to boycott. Because you don’t deserve our dollars. Not one red cent.
And maybe you just never learn. In 1989, you voted down recognition of the Martin Luther King holiday, and as a result, conventions and tourists boycotted the state, and the NFL moved the Superbowl to Pasadena. That was a $500 million mistake.
So if our appeals to equality, fairness, and our basic right to live in a civil society without doors being slammed in our face for being who we are don’t move you, I’ll bet a big hit to your pocketbook and state coffers will.
George Takei
Your move, Arizona. In the meantime,
SIGN THE PETITION: TELL ARIZONA GOV. JAN BREWER TO VETO THE "OKAY-TO-DISCRIMINATE" BILL.
Update: Senator John McCain is getting in on the action to stop the bill: