Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer took a big risk and vetoed a bill strongly favored by right-wing fanatics.
The bill would have allowed a business to refuse to serve someone based on religious beliefs; it was aimed at the gay community. The bill’s passage was a shock, and then it arrived on the governor’s desk for her to sign it into law. Brewer, it seemed, had some hard choices to make, but not if she made the morally correct choice.
If Brewer had decided to listen to the bigots of Arizona, the economic impact to the state would have been catastrophic. The NFL told Arizona that it would lose all hope of ever hosting another Super Bowl, trade shows and conventions threatened to pull out of commitments, and Arizona faced the prospect of looking like the biggest bunch of jerks in the nation.
But this fight was not just about serving gays; it was a probing attempt at asserting states’ rights under the cloak of religious freedom.
The passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 ended segregation and discrimination in public places. Since gays and lesbians are part of a protected class, this law applies to those persons also due to sexual orientation. If Brewer had signed the bill into law, it would have given businesses the right to discriminate against people of color on religious grounds. Passage would also mean an expensive fight that could’ve reached all the way to the Supreme Court. Which if the court upheld the law would have allowed states across America to write similar legislation.
Gov. Brewer gave up some political capital among right-wing conservatives, but she served the citizens of Arizona well in the long run.
