Arizona once again makes The Daily Show as a punchline for a segment about how even Kansas rejected the anti-gay legislation that passed the AZ Legislature yesterday.
Meanwhile, Mother Jones looks at how similar bills are cropping up in state legislatures across America:
Republicans lawmakers and a network of conservative religious groups has been pushing similar bills in other states, essentially forging a national campaign that, critics say, would legalize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Republicans in Idaho, Oregon, South Dakota, and Tennessee recently introduced provisions that mimic the Kansas legislation. And Arizona, Hawaii, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Mississippi have introduced broader “religious freedom” bills with a unique provision that would also allow people to deny services or employment to LGBT Americans, legal experts say.“This is a concerted campaign that the religious Right has been hinting at for a couple of years now,” says Evan Hurst, associate director of Truth Wins Out, a Chicago-based nonprofit that promotes gay rights. “The fact that they’re doing it Jim Crow-style is remarkable, considering the fact that one would think the GOP would like to be electable among people under 50 sometime in the near future.”
This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2014.
What in the ever-lovin’ Hell do these dipshits in Phoenix think they are doing? What don’t they understand about the establishment clause?
WHO KEEPS ELECTING THESE PEOPLE???
It seems to me that a private business has the right to refuse service to anyone on any grounds THEY choose. There is no law that must be agreed to before an individual is licensed and permitted to open a business. If that business is successful or it fails, is solely up to the owner and they must take financial responsibility for their actions. Most restaurants have a sign on the door that states “we reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone” or “no shoes, no shirt, no service”. Haven’t heard any big WhoHaw over that one. How is this different? And who or what they choose is their business – no one else’s. If they go bankrupt because they chose not to serve perverts, then they are the only ones that suffer. But again, it is THEIR choice not the governments. Arizona is merely agreeing that is the case. Don’t understand why anyone would complain…just find another store that will serve those kind of people. It has nothing to do with religion or ethical opinion or politics or morality. End of argument You folks need to go find another windmill to joust with…
Sorry, Chuckles, but discrimination is against they law. That’s why those laws are called Anti-Discrimination laws. Consider that windmill to have landed on your head.
Charles Horn is right. I also think customers should have the right to ask the owner to not serve some people. I get so sick of seeing fat women and blue collar men eating in the same restaurant as me. I also loose my cookies watching old(over50) people slop food all over themselves. Why should restaurants have to serve unattractive people. Fat slobs and lazy people should be jogging..not eating. Grey hair belongs in a cafeteria NOT in a restaurant that actually serves food. The bible states the bod is GODS temple. That means fat condo bodies stay out.
Hey Charles Horn, there’s a village missing its idiot. Get back there before they send out a search part. (Oh, and take the alleged “goodlookingguy in AZ” who has no picture with you.)
How are they getting away with this?
My dad told me once that when he was young this little diddy was popular…”If you’re white you are alright; if you’re brown stick around; if you’re black go to the back.” It is hard to believe that almost 60yrs later we are still sending people to “go to the back.” A business should only care what color a CST’s money is not if Steve and Adam are there together. We also need to stop insisting that God wants this. God made everyone in His image and he said it was “good.”
To repeat a comment I posted somewhere on this site earlier:
“Any Arizona businessperson that discriminates against gays or lesbians is a moron.
Because we have higher levels of income and really enjoy shopping.”
There is one good side of this bill. It will allow people to show their true colors and I will know which businesses not to spend my hard earned money. I know if I was a gay man that was wanting to buy a cake to celebrate probably the most memorable day if my life, I would not want to get a cake from a person that did not support my lifestyle. It is like when a friend of mine was specifically told by a manager at a local Wendy’s they got rid of their military discount because of the Iraq War. I stopped going there…why would I want to still give them my money??
I normally use many factors when buying a product from a business. I support buying American products to help give people in this country more jobs. Probably over 85% of my purchases are Made in the USA. I support local businesses because they are the backbone of this community. I support union made products because we need MORE union membership in this country. If I do buy from overseas, I try to look for fair trade products to help provide a living wage to foreign workers.
Now, with this bill, this will just give me more information on a business and if I want to spend my money there. There is a negative effect with today’s anti-discrimination bills. I could be buying from a racist/bigoted a-hole, but I would never know. I have some faith that if businesses were allowed to refuse service to anyone without legal repercussions, most Americans would stop patronizing that business.
or maybe the opposite would happen and we would just find out how messed up individuals are in our society…..
If you own a poster printing shop and the members of the Westboro Baptist Church come in and say “we need you to print 100 large signs for our protest at a soldier’s funeral saying “Fallen US Soldiers are in Hell”, shouldn’t you as the shop owner be able to say “Sorry, but this is at odds with my religious beliefs. I cannot participate in spreading your message”
Under the status quo, a business owner wouldn’t be able to refuse them service. This law would empower business owners to refuse and not compromise their religious values. The free practice of religion is a Constitutional right.
Damn, if those Southerners would have just said slavery was part of their sincerely held religious beliefs, there would have been no Civil War. So just a question, will a judge question what is a sincerely religious belief, and what isn’t as part of the numerous lawsuits that will come out?
Tucson Tommy,
Actually, people did use the bible to justify slavery. People also used it to justify not supporting interracial marriage. Religion can be used for good or evil.
So if my religious belief is that that your religion is wrong because it supports gays unions, even if you are not gay, I can refuse to serve you? Catholic, Mormon, Buddhist you’re all going to hell in my book. What if I think your religion is a cult and I don’t want to support your religion? Here is the issue: if you religiously believe in your personal life that homosexuality is wrong, that is your belief. However when you agree to open a business on the public square, which rely on public services such as police, fire, sewer, streets, sidewalks, schools that educate your workforce…etc (which straight AND gay taxpayers pay for). You are required by law not to discriminate. First it’s gays, then let’s refuse business with those who drink, or dance, or listen to devils music, or women who wear pants, or people who don’t go to church, or those which have tattoos, or been divorced, etc…. When does this end? Whose religion gets to trump someone else’s?
We now have elevated lust to a civil right, which has never been supported by the U.S. Constitution. Since civil rights are being perverted, business owners should be allowed not to participate in that abridgement of the Constitution, especially when their legitimate right to live according to the dictates of their conscience is protected by the First Amendment. The culture has been so desensitized to the destructive nature of lust, that any suggestion of restraint or modesty is met with epithets of “bigot” or “homophobe,” which completely avoids the real issue. We restrain every other emotion for the sake of others. We control our anger, our jealousy, our covetousness, or even our appetites for junk food, but ask people to restrain their sexual lust for more appropriate, more healthy, contexts, and people begin to foam at the mouth. Lust destroys love, and love between a man and a woman is a powerful emotional experience that is in most people completely devoid of lust. When love is the foundation for marriage, the health and intensity of the sexual experience is enhanced by the context of love acknowledged in a lifelong commitment. Instead we have exchanged love for lust and the result has been the increase of mental illness to the extent that 1 in every 5 adults in the U.S. take psychiatric medications. Over 54 million babies have been murdered by abortionists. More money is spent on pornography than national defense, while marriages are deteriorating at an alarming rate. Children are being raised in single parent homes, schools are failing, sex slavery and trafficking is burgeoning around the globe, and yet we still insist that there is no harm in lust. Now gays want to force business owners to participate in their attempts to make lust a civil right, just as they want to force their perversion on children in the public schools.
The simple fact of the matter is that all Americans are guaranteed the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Period.
SB 1062 offers everyone the right to discriminate against anyone and be protected from any consequences of their discrimination based on any amorphous claim that that person offended their religious sensibilities.
Let’s clear up this Christian thing. I defy anyone to show me anywhere in the Gospels where Jesus said anything about gays and lesbians, let alone to discriminate against them. Sorry, it’s not there. Actually, all I could find was that Jesus said to love thy neighbor as thyself. Now, in the Old Testament, there are some statements against homosexuality. That said, the Old Testament is the Torah, which is the Jewish bible. I haven’t heard any of my Jewish brothers and sisters weighing in in favor of SB 1062. I don’t think I’m likely to, either.
Your religious beliefs are just that – yours. You are entitled to them and they are protected by the Constitution. However, those rights do not grant you the right to impose them on anyone else.
The simple fact of the matter is that you can not legislate morality. Theocracy has been tried repeatedly throughout history and has failed repeatedly. Hey, if you don’t like serving gays, move to Iran. They don’t like it either.
Chris Cecil’s post above is a clear example of bigotry at its most base level. I don’t know where he goes to do business or eat at a restaurant, but in my 62+ years, I can’t recall seeing any gays or lesbians exhibiting sexual lust in such places. I’ve certainly seen plenty of straight men groping and mauling straight women, though (let’s leave sexism and misogyny for another day). But I guess that’s okay because they’re setting a proper sexual identity example. Actually, I think Mr. Cecil would be happier in Russia. Their view on gays and lesbians seems to match up pretty well with his.
If you want to discriminate against someone, no one is going to stop you. But do have the guts to stand up and defend what you did and why you did it, instead of hiding behind some nebulous claim of having your religious sensibilities offended.