(CNN) -- Arizona's Legislature has passed a controversial bill that would allow business owners, as long as they assert their religious beliefs, to deny service to gay and lesbian customers.
The bill, which the state
House of Representatives passed by a 33-27 vote Thursday, now goes to
Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican and onetime small business owner who
vetoed similar legislation last year but has expressed the right of
business owners to deny service.
"I think anybody that
owns a business can choose who they work with or who they don't work
with," Brewer told CNN in Washington on Friday. "But I don't know that
it needs to be statutory. In my life and in
my businesses, if I don't want to do business or if I don't want to deal with a particular company or person or whatever, I'm not interested. That's America. That's freedom."
my businesses, if I don't want to do business or if I don't want to deal with a particular company or person or whatever, I'm not interested. That's America. That's freedom."

Arizona Rep: Law would not shield waiter
As expected, the measure
has drawn criticism from Democrats and business groups who said it would
sanction discrimination and open the state to the risk of damaging
litigation.
On Friday, the LGBT group
Wingspan staged a protest march to the governor's office that drew
about 200 people. Some carried signs with messages "God created us all
equal" and "Shame on Arizona."
Tucson-based Rocco's
Little Chicago Pizzeria posted a photo on its Facebook page of a sign
with a message for state lawmakers: "We reserve the right to refuse
service to Arizona legislators."
"It's a ridiculous bill,"
pizzeria manager Evan Stevens told CNN on Friday. "Arizona has much
bigger problems than allowing businesses to discriminate against
people."
In a statement, Anna
Tovar, the state senate Democratic minority leader, said: "With the
express consent of Republicans in this Legislature, many Arizonans will
find themselves members of a separate and unequal class under this law
because of their sexual orientation. This bill may also open the door to
discriminate based on race, familial status, religion, sex, national
origin, age or disability."
The Greater Phoenix
Economic Council, in a letter to Brewer on Friday, urged the governor to
veto Senate Bill 1062, saying the "legislation will likely have
profound, negative effects on our business community for years to come."
"The legislation places
businesses currently in Arizona, as well as those looking to locate
here, in potentially damaging risk of litigation, and costly, needless
legal disputes," council President Barry Broome wrote, adding that four
unidentified companies have vowed to locate elsewhere if the legislation
is signed.
He added, "With major
events approaching in the coming year, including Super Bowl XLIX,
Arizona will be the center of the world's stage. This legislation has
the potential of subjecting the Super Bowl, and major events surrounding
it, to the threats of boycotts."
On CNN's "The Lead with
Jake Tapper," Arizona state Rep. John Kavanagh, a Republican, said the
bill would not allow hotel clerks or waiters, for instance, to turn away
customers, unless there was a "substantial burden on their sincerely
held religious beliefs."
The bill is being pushed
by the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative group
opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage. The group has justified the
measure on grounds that the proposal protects people against
increasingly activist federal courts.
"As we witness hostility
towards people of faith grow like never before, we must take this
opportunity to speak up for religious liberty," the group said on its
website, asking people to contact Brewer and urge her to sign the bill.
"The great news is that SB 1062 protects your right to live and work
according to your faith."
Cathi Herrod, the
center's president, told CNN on Friday, "The Arizona bill has a very
simple premise, that Americans should be free to live and work according
to their religious faith. It's simply about protecting religious
liberty and nothing else."
Herrod said the bill's
opponents are "showing unbelievable hostility toward religious beliefs."
"America still stands
for the principle that religious beliefs matter (for) something in this
country, that we have the right to freely exercise our religious
beliefs," she said.
But Robert Boston, a
spokesman for the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State,
told CNN the legislation would "fling the door wide open to
discrimination, not just against gay people, but basically to any class
of individuals that a religious fundamentalist decides he or she doesn't
want to deal with."
He added, "A woman who
is pregnant out of wedlock, for example, 'Well, out the door, you don't
get served in my business.' "
The Arizona legislation
was passed as conservative states work to counter laws legalizing
same-sex marriage. Arizona voters approved a ban on same-sex marriage as
a state constitutional amendment in 2008.
The American Civil
Liberties Union of Arizona called the bill "unnecessary and
discriminatory."
"What today's bill does
is allow private individuals and businesses to use religion to
discriminate, sending a message that Arizona is intolerant and
unwelcoming," the group said in a statement.
Some Republican
legislators have defended the bill as a First Amendment issue. Democrats
dismissed it as an attack on gays and lesbians.
"It's a very bad day for
Arizona," Rep. Chad Campbell, a Phoenix Democrat who voted against the
legislation, told CNN Friday.
He added, "Let there be
no doubt about what this bill does. It's going to allow people to
discriminate against the gay community in Arizona. It goes after
unprotected classes of people and we all know that the biggest
unprotected class of people in the state is the LBGT community. If we
were having this conversation in regard to African-Americans or women,
there would be outrage across the country right now."
Source: CNN
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