AZ Legislature turns back clock, resumes segregation, but this time for gays

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

McCain and other members of the AZ delegation want Brewer to veto

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I love Cassius' delusional argument "well it's only a minor inconvenience to be denied service because of your sexuality"...

Actually, being denied service because of who you are is deeply, deeply offensive, and it's 'wrong' on almost every level it can be wrong.

It's that logic that people who are desperately trying to avoid the human element of it ... because guess what? it is not a theory in a textbook, it is not an argument in a lecture theatre...  it's about real people and their sense of inclusion in society.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It's also about how to balance the right to inclusion in society with the right to choose who to associate with, polnut.  I don't think this bill strikes the right balance, but a more narrowly targeted bill that would allow people and businesses to choose to not provide services to same-sex weddings or similar events where the sexuality of the clients is something that would be evident would strike an acceptable balance as far as I am concerned.

[Miles]

A big majority of AZ Republicans don't support the bill. 57% of Republicans in AZ want the bill vetoed; only 28% support it.

[Bojack Horseman]

Since this is specifically designed to allow Christian homophobic business owners to turn away gays, I'm wondering how this applies to non-Christian business owners, and discrimination in other ways. For example, I'm an atheist. Would this legislation make it legal to put up a sign in the window of my restaurant that says, "No Christians Will be Served" because my religious beliefs "prevent" me from serving Christians? If that happened, the same people who so proudly supported this bill would be screaming bloody murder. Now that said, it's discrimination plain and simple.

[afleitch]

It's also about how to balance the right to inclusion in society with the right to choose who to associate with, polnut.  I don't think this bill strikes the right balance, but a more narrowly targeted bill that would allow people and businesses to choose to not provide services to same-sex weddings or similar events where the sexuality of the clients is something that would be evident would strike an acceptable balance as far as I am concerned.

Such a bill would be more directly discriminatory and unworkable. It provides a set of people with an acquired status (people can change religion like they change their breakfast cereal) legal protections to discriminate against people with an inbuilt status (the same goes for arguments allowing religious discrimination against women). How do you measure a defendant's religiousity? How does the court test determine how 'faithful' a person is and what weight that carries? Can someone who has such a wooly attachment to religion, faith or spirituality refuse to provide services motivated by homophobia and then declare to the court that it was done based on religious conviction. Who vouches for that?

[Cassius]

Well, I guess, its because I can only make decisions based upon my background and present situation. Sure, I can 'put myself in the shoes' of people who are, perhaps, not like me, with very different backgrounds, and I can sympathise with their struggles and their plight and all the rest of the daily drudgery that is their existence. But, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, because, like it or not, rebel or not (which I don't) I am not one of them, and I have very different interests and values to them.

No, most people are able to feel empathy for other people.  That's being a normal human being.  You may have a psychological disorder. 

I pretty much described empathy in the second sentence. Of course I can feel empathy, even for people whom I disagree with. But, that doesn't mean one should act upon every empathetic emotion that comes their way. Sometimes you can empathise with someone and think 'they're wrong' and do something contrary to their interests. For instance, and this is a rather extreme example, but one that anyway, illustrates my point in this post rather well. Suppose you are a judge, and you hand down a sentence of life imprisonment to a convicted criminal. If I were that judge, I would certainly empathise with the criminal in question, the remainder of whose life, probably, won't be particularly jolly. However, I wouldn't (and you wouldn't, probably) say 'oh hang it, let him go free'. That would be a case of over empathising, as it would lead you into making a stupid decision just because of an overactive heart. Alternatively, I could, in a fit of extreme empathy, give all of the money away to the poor. And then I'd be poor. I guess my point is that empathy is a valuable tool, but it shouldn't govern your brain. I mean, I suspect that you don't, fully, let it do so either. In fact, few people do. However, I am simply pointing out that, to me, the most important criteria when it comes to important decision making are how something will affect me, and the people around me.

[afleitch]

However, I am simply pointing out that, to me, the most important criteria when it comes to important decision making are how something will affect me, and the people around me.

Then you need to make more friends.

[bedstuy]

Well, I guess, its because I can only make decisions based upon my background and present situation. Sure, I can 'put myself in the shoes' of people who are, perhaps, not like me, with very different backgrounds, and I can sympathise with their struggles and their plight and all the rest of the daily drudgery that is their existence. But, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, because, like it or not, rebel or not (which I don't) I am not one of them, and I have very different interests and values to them.

No, most people are able to feel empathy for other people.  That's being a normal human being.  You may have a psychological disorder. 

I pretty much described empathy in the second sentence. Of course I can feel empathy, even for people whom I disagree with. But, that doesn't mean one should act upon every empathetic emotion that comes their way. Sometimes you can empathise with someone and think 'they're wrong' and do something contrary to their interests. For instance, and this is a rather extreme example, but one that anyway, illustrates my point in this post rather well. Suppose you are a judge, and you hand down a sentence of life imprisonment to a convicted criminal. If I were that judge, I would certainly empathise with the criminal in question, the remainder of whose life, probably, won't be particularly jolly. However, I wouldn't (and you wouldn't, probably) say 'oh hang it, let him go free'. That would be a case of over empathising, as it would lead you into making a stupid decision just because of an overactive heart. Alternatively, I could, in a fit of extreme empathy, give all of the money away to the poor. And then I'd be poor. I guess my point is that empathy is a valuable tool, but it shouldn't govern your brain. I mean, I suspect that you don't, fully, let it do so either. In fact, few people do. However, I am simply pointing out that, to me, the most important criteria when it comes to important decision making are how something will affect me, and the people around me.

You can't very well say that you have a normal understanding of ethics and empathy and then say that.  I'm not saying you should act on empathy alone.  I'm saying you need to have principles that apply to society if your're talking about laws.  Laws aren't made for your convenience or pleasure, they're a means of fairly regulating society.  You need to have principles stretching beyond yourself to have anything to offer in this discussion.

A rational adult has principles and makes rational arguments based on their principles.  Saying the world revolves around me is something a misbehaved child says.  Nobody cares about you, dude.

[Miles]

Romney jumps on the veto bandwagon.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It's also about how to balance the right to inclusion in society with the right to choose who to associate with, polnut.  I don't think this bill strikes the right balance, but a more narrowly targeted bill that would allow people and businesses to choose to not provide services to same-sex weddings or similar events where the sexuality of the clients is something that would be evident would strike an acceptable balance as far as I am concerned.

Such a bill would be more directly discriminatory and unworkable. It provides a set of people with an acquired status (people can change religion like they change their breakfast cereal) legal protections to discriminate against people with an inbuilt status (the same goes for arguments allowing religious discrimination against women). How do you measure a defendant's religiousity? How does the court test determine how 'faithful' a person is and what weight that carries? Can someone who has such a wooly attachment to religion, faith or spirituality refuse to provide services motivated by homophobia and then declare to the court that it was done based on religious conviction. Who vouches for that?

No one needs to vouch for it, nor does my position depend in any form upon religion save as it may influence the choices that a person or organization may make in deciding with whom to associate. My position is based on the right of free association not the right of religion.  As a general rule I do not want government to force people to associate with those they don't want to associate with.  (Nor do I want government to force people to not associate with certain people as unfortunately happened during the de jure racial segregation of the Jim Crow era.) While this is a rather hyperbolic way of stating it, forcing people to work for you against their will is generally considered slavery, is it not?

Hence, the onus is on those who would force such associations when one party does not want to associate to justify that use of government coercion. I do not think that not getting a particular florist, photographer, DJ, caterer, reception hall, et cetera for an event because the provider would rather have nothing to do with that event does not rise to the level of a fundamental breech of one's rights that would justify interference with the right of private individuals to choose who to associate with.  Now if private discrimination were to be of such a level as to make it impossible or significantly difficult to hold such an event, maybe then government coercion could be justified, but I don't see that happening.  In a case such as this, where we have a conflict between two rights, one of them is going to need to be heavily impacted to bring the weight of government coercion down in favor of one of them and I don't see the impact here to be heavy enough to justify government interfering with the right of free association.

[Mr. Illini]

Apple, American Airlines, and Marriott all warn that if bill is signed, they'll consider leaving

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/25/apple-arizona-gay-discrimination/

[Mr. Illini]

Gov. Brewer will "do the right thing," many believe that signals veto

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/25/politics/brewer-arizona-religious-freedom/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_allpolitics+(RSS%3A+Politics)

[Brittain33]

This bill has even lost the ultimate weathervane for Republican conventional wisdom. Mitt tweeted to Jan Brewer to veto.

[Nhoj]

This bill has even lost the ultimate weathervane for Republican conventional wisdom. Mitt tweeted to Jan Brewer to veto.

Mitt is on Marriott's board isn't he?

[MaxQue]

This bill has even lost the ultimate weathervane for Republican conventional wisdom. Mitt tweeted to Jan Brewer to veto.

Mitt is on Marriott's board isn't he?

Yes (as are the Chairman of Nortel and the Dean of Business of Wake Forest U, among others).

[bedstuy]

This bill has even lost the ultimate weathervane for Republican conventional wisdom. Mitt tweeted to Jan Brewer to veto.

Mitt is on Marriott's board isn't he?

In his defense, he rarely remarked about gay marriage/rights other than very hushed appeals to "traditional marriage", and never made it a campaign issue in 2012. He had a campaign advisor who was gay too, until he was forced out by socons(Mitt was displeased by this). If Romney was POTUS, he'd probably not have a problem with the SCOTUS decision about gay marriage either(at worst his reaction would be a sarcastic "oh noooo...." like when he was Governor).

He wasn't a cultural warrior like GWB. But yeah, Marriot board allows him to oppose it in his non-Presidency.

On the other hand, Mitt Romney supported a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and is a leader in the Mormon church which extensively funded the Proposition 8 campaign in California.

It's ridiculous to say Mitt Romney is less of a culture warrior than Bush.  Bush wasn't super-psyched to push the anti-gay agenda either, he just saw it as a political opportunity.  Remember, Bush was totally fine with Dick Cheney disagreeing about same-sex marriage during the 2004 campaign.  The difference with Romney is that it was less advantageous to oppose same-sex marriage in 2012 than 2004. 

And please, don't act like being on a corporate board is an important full-time job.  A large ficus tree could serve on the Marriott board and nobody would notice.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And please, don't act like being on a corporate board is an important full-time job.  A large ficus tree could serve on the Marriott board and nobody would notice.

The gardener would.

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

Report: Brewer will veto

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Missouri doing something similar.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/arizona-sb1062-missouri-kansas-georgia-103981.html

[afleitch]

As a general rule I do not want government to force people to associate with those they don't want to associate with.  (Nor do I want government to force people to not associate with certain people as unfortunately happened during the de jure racial segregation of the Jim Crow era.)

And why wouldn’t your proposed law be the same? Other than various local governments and some states, there is no federal law protecting LGBT people from discrimination. Other than in some towns, there is no law in Arizona. Why therefore change the law in Arizona which currently does not offer protection to LGBT people by omission, into a law that objectively codifies that discrimination?

[RedSLC]

Looks like the movement against this bill has worked. Hopefully, it can be used to prevent it from being implemented in other states as well.

..like Utah. For the time being, the legislature has chosen not to debate a bill similar to the one in Arizona, partly because some legislators fear that it could hurt the state's chances of appealing the SSM ruling. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's completely dead, yet, and could possibly be introduced in the summer.

If it does get introduced, then hopefully, the same tactics that were used to thwart the passage of this bill can work here, too. I'm pretty confident they will, but you can never be too certain.

[Brittain33]

I don't think you needed the URL to guess which congressman decided to step up and support this bill.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/louie-gohmert-arizona-anti-gay-bill

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

As a general rule I do not want government to force people to associate with those they don't want to associate with.  (Nor do I want government to force people to not associate with certain people as unfortunately happened during the de jure racial segregation of the Jim Crow era.)

And why wouldn’t your proposed law be the same? Other than various local governments and some states, there is no federal law protecting LGBT people from discrimination. Other than in some towns, there is no law in Arizona. Why therefore change the law in Arizona which currently does not offer protection to LGBT people by omission, into a law that objectively codifies that discrimination?

Well, beyond the main reason this bill was brought up in the first place was to be a political stunt, there is also the tendency of some judges to rewrite laws as they feel they ought to have been written when the legislature doesn't explicitly state everything. Hence, I can understand why some might feel the need for making this explicit.  It certainly would be better if they amended the existing law to make it explicit that only the listed classes are covered and no judge is to extend the list since there are reasons unrelated to LGBT why one might choose to decline to provide a service. (Even better would be to repeal those laws entirely, but they exist in part as a remedy to the previous decades of de jure required discrimination against ethnic minorities and women.  While I believe they can be repealed someday, it's too soon for that.)

[Rocky Rockefeller]

I don't think you needed the URL to guess which congressman decided to step up and support this bill.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/louie-gohmert-arizona-anti-gay-bill

Ya don't say?