"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Arizona Veto

Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed Arizona's "Christians are above the law" bill last evening. From the press conference:

Senate Bill 1062 does not address a specific and present concern related to religious liberty in Arizona. I have not heard of one example in Arizona where a business owner’s religious liberty has been violated.

The bill is broadly worded and could result in unintended and negative consequences. After weighing all of the arguments, I vetoed Senate Bill 1062 moments ago.

Her full remarks are here.

Given the reaction not only from civil rights activists and Democrats, but prominent Republicans (including three state senators who voted for the bill and now call their votes "a mistake") and, most important, I suspect, business leaders, what else could she do?

Just as an example of the verbal contortions (not to mention logical gymnastics) proponents of this sort of hate legislation engage in, here's none other than Michele Bachmann (R-Loony Tunes) on how we need to tolerate bigots.


See, it's not about discriminating against people you don't approve of, it's about people tolerating your attempts to intrude your religious beliefs into areas they don't belong.

It seems as though most of the similar bills in other state legislatures have died, for some reason.

Jeremy Hooper has a good analysis of the whole phenomenon at GLAAD.

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