US gov vetoes anti-gay bill

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has vetoes a bill that would have allowed business owners who cited their religious beliefs to turn away gay customers.

Brewer said the bill could have had “unintended and negative consequences”.

It was touted as a religious liberty protection by social conservatives. Its opponents denounced it as legalising anti-gay discrimination.

Business groups warned it would tarnish the state’s reputation and discourage companies from moving to the state.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Brewer, a Republican, said the bill did “not address a specific or present concern related to religious liberty in Arizona”.

“I have not heard one example in Arizona where a business owner’s religious liberty has been violated,” she said of the bill, which passed the state legislature last week with the strong backing of the state’s Republican Party.

Brewer spent Wednesday huddling with both supporters and opponents of the bill and said she had vetoed it because she believed it had “the potential to create more problems that it purports to solve”.

“It could divide Arizona in ways we cannot even imagine and nobody could ever want,” she said

In doing so, Brewer sided with the business community – including firms such as Intel, Yelp, Marriott and Major League Baseball and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce.

Loud cheers erupted outside the Arizona capitol building immediately after the governor announced the veto.

Rebecca Wininger, president of Equality Arizona, told the BBC the veto was “a clear message for those trying to use religion and those with right-leaning rhetoric that we’re done… we’re tired and we’re done with being discriminated against”.

Even as the federal government, the military, the courts, other states and US public opinion increasingly back gay rights and same-sex marriage, some states have seen the makings of a backlash in recent weeks, analysts say.

“Religious liberty” bills similar to the Arizona measure have been introduced in seven other US states, but Arizona’s was the only legislature to send a bill to the governor.

The bill would have expanded the state’s religious liberty law to add protection from lawsuits for individuals or businesses that cited their “sincerely held” religious beliefs as motivating factors in taking an action or refusing to do so.

Source: Punch