TWO VIEWS
“Our goal—and we suspect the goal of others—has been to try to find the right balance between fully protecting religious freedom and other civil liberties so that both sides of the marriage debate can coexist harmoniously.”
— Brian Walsh, executive director, American Religious Freedom Program, which backs bills like Arizona's
“This seems to be a concerted Hail Mary campaign to carve out special rights for religious conservatives so that they don’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else does.”
— Evan Hurst, associate director of Truth Wins Out, a gay rights group
Source: Mother Jones
The Arizona Legislature’s approval to legislation that allows business owners asserting their religious beliefs to refuse service to gays is the first among several such bills drawing debate across the nation.
Similar religious protection legislation has been introduced in Ohio, Mississippi, Idaho, South Dakota, Tennessee and Oklahoma, but Arizona’s plan, approved 33-27 in the House on Thursday after passing the Senate, is the only one that has passed. The efforts are stalled in Idaho, Ohio and Kansas.
Responding to Democrats who called it “state-sanctioned discrimination” and an embarrassment, Republicans stressed that the Arizona bill is about protecting religious freedom and not discrimination. They frequently cited the case of a New Mexico photographer who was sued after refusing to take wedding pictures of a gay couple and said Arizona needs a law to protect people in the state from heavy-handed actions by courts and law enforcement.
The bill allows any business, church or person to cite the law as a defense in any action brought by the government or individual claiming discrimination. It also allows people or businesses to seek an injunction once they show their actions are based on a sincere religious belief and the claim places a burden on the exercise of their religion.
The legislation prompted a heated debate on the floor of the Arizona House, touching on issues such as the religious freedom, constitutional protections and civil rights.
Opponents raised scenarios in which gay people in Arizona could be denied service at a restaurant or refused medical treatment if a business owner thought homosexuality was not in accordance with his religion. One lawmaker held up a sign that read “NO GAYS ALLOWED” in arguing what could happen if the law took effect, drawing a rebuke for violating rules that bar signs on the House floor.
The bill is backed by the Center for Arizona Policy, a social conservative group that opposes abortion and gay marriage. The group says the proposal is needed to protect against increasingly activist federal courts and simply clarifies existing state law.
“We see a growing hostility toward religion,” said Josh Kredit, legal counsel for the group.
The legislation comes also as an increasing number of conservative states grapple with ways to counter the increasing legality of gay marriage.
Arizona’s voters approved a ban on same-sex marriage as a state constitutional amendment in 2008. It’s one of 29 states with such prohibitions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Federal judges have recently struck down bans in Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia, but those decisions are under appeal.
The bill is similar to a proposal last year that Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed. It also would have allowed people or religious groups to sue if they believed they might be subject to a government regulation that infringed on their religious rights. Sponsors stripped that provision from the new bill, but civil liberties and secular groups countered that the legislation could still allow people to break nearly any law and cite religious freedom as a defense.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Steve Yarbrough, called those worries “unrealistic and unsupported hypotheticals” and said criminal laws will continue to be prosecuted by the courts.
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