By now you have heard that Brewer has vetoed the Arizona Jim Crow gay-bashing law:
After days of protests and criticism levied against her state, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) said on Wednesday that she vetoed SB 1062, which would have effectively legalized discrimination based on religious grounds.
Brewer said she had not heard of one example of religious freedoms being attacked without the bill, considered it broadly worded, and did not address any specific concerns.
She further said that SB 1062 “has the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve” and would be divisive “to a degree that no one would ever want.”
Brewer was reportedly in emergency meetings earlier in the day concerning the bill, which was passed by the GOP-dominated state legislature earlier this month, prompting not only objections by residents, businesses, and fellow Republicans, but threats of a boycott from prominent actor and activist George Takei and the prospects of the National Football League moving the Super Bowl out of the state in response.
At some point they will learn.
Actually, no, they won’t. I was burned once before with my peak wingnut speculation, and they won’t learn. Clowns like this asshole are just going to have to all drop dead, and the next generation will have fewer bigots, and the subsequent generation will have fewer, although by then we will have figured out someone else who is acceptable for the time being to abuse. The only thing that is going to change things is for these octogenarian bigots to die off.
Also, depressingly enough, the only thing that for now will keep these bigoted scumbags in line is their beloved free market, which has actually figured out that the LGBT community spends money like everyone else, and they have a lot of straight friends. Other than that, I see nothing keeping the new Confederacy trying to keep pulling this bullshit. I mean, what else can you think about these people?
Demographic changes are our only hope.
Comrade Dread
You’re right. They won’t.
I like to listen to Christian talk radio every now and again just to keep in touch with my former comrades. They did a good fifteen minute segment about how this was about religious freedom, and the question that kept going through my head was, “Hey, how about someone who religiously objects to an interracial heterosexual marriage? Would you be cool with them telling their potential clients to drop dead?”
I suspect they would twist themselves into pretzels trying to parse out why that would be wrong.
Mnemosyne
Here’s the story from the Arizona Republic (Phoenix paper). Basically, every Republican in the state begged her to veto it, including many of the ones who originally voted for it. Of the 6 Republicans vying to run for governor, 5 of them wanted her to veto it.
Not much political courage required, but damn funny to watch unfold.
Alison
Yeah, I mean…as I said on the Twitterz, aside from the gross bigotry and everything (which obvs matters to me, one of those icky queers) what kind of crummy idiot business owner says NO GO AWAY DON’T GIVE ME YOUR MONEY. Like…that is the exact opposite of a smart business plan.
And owning a business generally means associating, albeit usually briefly, with the public. If you despise certain members of the public so much you don’t even want to take their money, maybe you know don’t open a damn business. Dumbasses.
Belafon
After the Vulcan homeworld is destroyed, the remaining Vulcans who thought they could move here will be told only humans are allowed.
karen
Actually they will learn. They’ll use different wording that targets gays instead of having it so broad that it’s obviously discriminatory.
muddy
Daily Show is excellent tonight.
GregB
How will this play out in state house and senate races in Arizona this fall? Will these reprobate dingleberrys get an electoral smack-down?
Jerzy Russian
think –> thing
You have to wonder how many of those folks in the Arizona state house dress themselves every morning.
John O
Actually if you take the long view, we’re probably in a 50-yearish peak wingnut period that started around 1980, and is being slowly and entertainingly killed by those very demographics you mention, John.
Jane2
Actually, this *is* good news…if economic threats are what make governments do the “right thing”, so be it. This bill barely lasted five minutes before people like the federal GOP Senators and others were forced to urge a veto. The more this happens, the less hold the “Christians” (aka Religious Right) have on the law of the land. And that can only be a good thing…they’re loud and obnoxious, but their power is diminishing.
ETA And it’s good to see that the extreme right national campaign to impose restrictions to equality through one state government at a time failed so spectacularly.
mclaren
Gay male couples tend to have more disposable income than other types of couples, so they’re power players in the market. That should end this horseshit toot sweet.
burnspbesq
I blame the Originalists. Fuckers have been spouting nonsense for decades about the scope of the Establishment Clause, and Christianists have been sucking it up like chocolate milkshakes.
Y’all can have all the freedom of religion you can stand. That’s what the Exercise Clause is for. What you don’t get to do is jam your religious beliefs down the throats of people who don’t share them (and yes, Cardinal Dolan, this means you, too).
catclub
@Jane2: “Actually, this *is* good news…if economic threats are what make governments do the “right thing”, so be it. ”
Well, good…ish.
A sane reading of the constitution, the 1964 civil rights act, or the new testament would motivate most
humans not to pass that law… None of those were available to stop the AZ legislators.
If only economic arguments make an impact, we are dealing with ferengi.
Suffern ACE
@Belafon: well, they probably have developed a low cost zero carbon emission fuel that isn’t environmentally degrading to extract, so of course we’d run them out of town.
burnspbesq
@GregB:
That’s even less likely than the D’Backs winning the World Series or the Cardinals winning the Super Bowl.
Jibeaux
I think they’ll learn on the gay rights issue, because it’s Sui generis as to the speed that it’s changed. In 2008 Obama and Hillary were publicly opposed to marriage equality, remember. Everything else is going to be much, much more slowly learned.
burnspbesq
@catclub:
If only. Ferengi are rational. Wingnuts and religious zealots? Not so much.
gwangung
@burnspbesq: Burnsie…..the Cards are one of the teams the ‘Hawks are worried about. Not as unlikely as some might think….
Gex
What I found refreshing is that we’ve passed the point where big business sits on the fence and hopes to hell that they don’t get dragged into this contentious issue. Instead they entered the fray.
Their reading of where we are as a society on this issue ends up translating into an economic argument (it is better for them to back our side than the haters) but it is still what they are reading about where things stand right now and where they will be in the very near future.
The hate may be far from over, but we are nearing some sort of tipping point on the issue.
bk
She’s termed out, idiot.
Mr Stagger Lee
To quote Quentin Tarantino from Kill Bill Vol.2
Arizona got its’ economic ass kicked whe they lost the last Super Bowl because of the MLK Holiday. And that douchcanoe Evan Meachan got booted soon enough.
Personally I think we should go on the offensive and still pull the Super Bowl from Arizona(if I was the Commissioner/God of Sport in America) and put a boycott until Arizona joins the 21st Century. Plus kick the Fiesta Bowl off the BCS Championship roll too!
Jane2
@Gex: You said it far better than I did. They’ve figured out that discrimination against gay people is a money loser….fantastic.
scav
Also is fun to consider the further wedge this might inflame (I’m assuming a flammable wedge strictly for cinematic purposes — nb the wedge is being pounded deeper by a burning 9 lb hammer so is only half mixed metaphorically) between the Big Money Flyers and the Purity Wing of the Gooper Tent. Big Sports, Big Money, Big Media all sided with the ebil-ebil-ebil doers, the Free Market wasn’t supposed to work that way, Corporate People must be driven from politics! The Media they have long railed at, but Sport!?! And the goopers in power with dangly ganglia collaborated!
piratedan
@GregB: most likely not, the lege did a great job of gerrymandering the state and they’ve got an entrenched fear campaign that runs non-stop.
not to say that there aren’t any attempts, latino and native american voter registration drives have been ongoing and the national districts are drawn more fairly than the local ones, but as always, it’s getting people to the polls and change takes time and effort.
gf120581
On that Anderson Cooper interview, I think Al Melvin may be a serious contender for stupidest politician in the country. I lost count how many times Cooper gave him the opportunity to explain himself and he failed utterly.
NotMax
Prejudice and bigotry never completely die out. But experience of the sky not falling and of time and frequency making the once more widely shocking/stupefying/offensive into the mundane/unexceptional/acclimatized does shove the depleting ranks of overt angrynauts further and further to the fringe and into contemporary irrelevance.
Sadly, the same strident, discredited arguments are a commodity and the bogeymen are fungible. The rhetoric will be dragged out of mothballs and applied to the next suitable topic. And the next after that.
Mr Stagger Lee
Oh BTW Kudos to the people of Kansa who pushed back on similiar nonsense by their Teahadi legislature and I hear Ohio may also scale back their version too.
gf120581
@bk: That’s what I thought. Maybe he can upset Brewer’s post-politics plan for going on wingnut welfare.
Jay C
I especially liked the comment from the wingnut demanding a challenge to Gov. Brewer: 30 seconds on Wikipedia might have told him that Jan is history come Jan.: she is term-limited by state law, and can’t run again this year. But, True Republicans should mount a primary challenge, anyway! Yeah, that’ll show the old bitch…..
mdblanche
@piratedan: I thought Arizona had an independent commission for redistricting.
NotMax
@Jay C
Which gives her ample time to move and establish residency to run for governor post-Christie in NJ.
Hell, all the egregious (R) govs could do that. Sort of a game of Musical Peers.
(May have just thrown up a little in my mouth.)
Chris
@Comrade Dread:
I don’t know. Who do we mean by “they?”
I mean, peak wingnut sort of happened in 1929, in terms of the country being tired of them. At least for fifty years it was. But the wingnuts never learned. They regrouped into their little corners at the National Review and the John Birch Society, lashed out every chance they got with things like McCarthyism and the Goldwater campaign, and eventually made their way back into politics (Reagan).
It be how they roll. So no, peak wingnut doesn’t happen to wingnuts. But sometimes, it happens to the country.
Roger Moore
I think things are actually better than that. Popular opinion on marriage equality has been moving much faster than you can explain by demographic change, which means plenty of people have changed their minds on the issue. Now it may well be that the changing of minds will stop and opposition will stabilize with 27% against, but that’s going to happen well before most of today’s wingnuts die off.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Hereby dub the unit of measurement the Milkimeter.
Cervantes
@mdblanche:
You thought right.
Little Boots
they’ll never entirely go away, of course. there are still neo-nazis, but they become more ridiculous every year.
Ian
O/T but the last open thread is pretty dead.
Cory Gardner- my ex-congressman who beat Betsy Markey in the old CO-4 in 2010, is running for senate in Colorado. Gardner is a moderate sounding republican who actually votes and believes in things the Taliban would find heinous. I’ve met the man (he is a narcissistic douche) and I do not believe he stands a chance in Colorado. His base is rural eastern Colorado and he was incapable of winning votes in Larimer county (which many political junkies view to be a belle-weather county for the nation at large.)
I see already that D-kos is concern trolling this announcement, but my view is that it helps the Democratic chances of keeping the senate. Gardner is anti-choice (what killed Buck in 10), anti-immigration reform, anti-farm bill, and does not perform well among urban area voters.
Additionally Mark Udall is popular in Colorado and polls well. A congressman from the part of the state that tried to secede from the state will have a hard time with the rest of Colorado.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Yep. My parents are in that category. I still remember ten years or so ago when I first heard gay marriage mentioned as an issue on the radio, and pondered it for all of five seconds before the obvious response “that’s just stupid, why don’t they let them marry?” came out. Cue fifteen minutes of argument, and later the fact that they were concerned I might be gay. Nowadays… one parent is all for it, the other, if not approving, doesn’t object out loud anymore. I’m not gay, but my opinions probably weighed in some; so did their having out of the closet friends their age.
Little Boots
@Ian:
he sounds like a douche. he sounds like a republican. hope he crashes.
it amazes me that so many people still vote douche, but sadly they will probably keep the House.
what a sad and stupid country we still are.
NotMax
@Chris
Good on them both.
Some people move effortlessly from A to B. Others travel a more scenic route.
Marriage equality is a sterling example that familiarity does not ineluctably breed contempt.
Citizen_X
Yup, this is how progress usually occurs: one funeral at a time.
Little Boots
@Citizen_X:
at best. it would seem the confederacy would finally be dead, but actually, not so much.
Petorado
So AZ conservatives passed this discriminatory measure to throw their base a bone, but even before the legislature voted on it, proponents of the bill were asking the governor to veto it upon passage. I don’t get why they even voted for it in the first place. Their base now thinks they’re traitors, the state gets a black eye, their opponents win, and the business community now sees them as a cultural backwater to be leery of. Are they really that pigheaded or just that stupid?
Little Boots
@Petorado:
short sighted, I think. the great god Money stepped in and said the sacrifice was unacceptable, and suddenly there was trauma in the temple of conservatopia.
Villago Delenda Est
@Little Boots:
This is the ongoing dilemma of the GOP. The idiocy of the social reactionaries vs. the greed of the members of the country club. As long as they don’t collide, they can work together. When they do, popcorn futures skyrocket.
Little Boots
@Villago Delenda Est:
I wonder if global climate change will cause more and more collisions. not sure, but it could.
Villago Delenda Est
@Little Boots:
The guys at the Pentagon are not waiting for a resolution of that conflict. They’re planning for it now. They operate in the real world, not the back yard of jackasses like Charles Krauthammer and George Will, who can’t look beyond the horizon to grok the problem.
Mnemosyne
@Petorado:
I think there was a certain amount of Fox News Syndrome (aka everyone in my neighborhood has a Romney sign on their lawn!). Inside the conservative bubble, this sounded like a great idea, but once it moved outside that bubble, reality set in.
Petorado
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, but how long until the inevitable doubling-down occurs by the reps that are now hearing they’re going to be primaried by an even wingier wingnut who will have the resolve to really go after the gays?
Jay C
@Petorado:
Probably a
littlelot of both: though I do think the proponents of SB 1062 were likely blindsided by the sheer volume of opposition their “religious freedom” bill engendered. The most “stupid” part, though,(IMHO) was re-writing the bill to make it so overbroad and open-ended: with, AFAICT virtually no controlling language over what constituted “religious belief”, and extending what amounted to a license to ignore virtually any local or state law to pretty much any person or entity (again, broadly defined) on their own say-so. Oh, and legally limit the State’s ability to challenge said say-so.Must be an artifact of living in the right-wing media bubble: I guess they were counting on the public viewing the bill merely as a protection for the “baker of conscience” from nasty lawsuits for not wanting to deal with icky gay weddings or whatever; it never seems to have occurred to them that anyone might notice that their proposal was fundamentally a blanket legalization of any sort of discrimination: or that anyone with the clout to do anything about it might object.
Sadly, I think the lesson Big Bigotry is going to learn from the debacle in Arizona is simply to craft their discriminatory proposals more carefully.
Mnemosyne
@Petorado:
Apple is building a large factory in Mesa, AZ.
Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, is gay.
That bill is never getting past any Arizona governor.
Chris
@Little Boots:
You’re telling me.
I’ll consider the Civil War won when the Confederacy is held in the same contempt in which Germans today hold Nazism – much like I’ll consider the New Deal won when robber barons are held in the same contempt in which the French hold the monarchy.
In other words, we’re gonna be here a while. We’re still fighting the nineteenth century’s demons.
DTOzone
why should they? They control the Arizona State House and almost certainly will after November.
Republicans have no fear of losing, why should they learn?
Little Boots
@Chris: @Petorado:
that window might be closing. not sure.
Little Boots
@Chris:
this.
people just don’t let go. it’s pathetic, but there are still neo-nazis.
Gex
@Petorado: Are you kidding? They won’t let themselves be portrayed as traitors. They will portray themselves as victims. They TRIED to do right by their constituents. But the the homofascists and their allies in big business (remember their base is actually anti-big business even though they are “pro business”) pressured and blackmailed them. These guys love to play the victim and they will do it well. And the base will eat it up because it will confirm to them that they are the persecuted ones.
Little Boots
@Gex:
true, but it gets a little more pathetic each year. just flailing around looks stupid eventually.
karen marie
@Little Boots: I think this episode is a perfect demonstration that conservatives are still caught in the bubble that made them think Romney had a chance in hell. When the money started making noise, they came to their senses. They know they’re right, so they’ll try to figure out another way to force their warped beliefs on everyone else. I hope I live long enough to see them get their asses kicked when the revolution comes.
Little Boots
@karen marie:
I agree. I don’t want to create a bubble of our own, but so often they just look so ridiculous to anyone not in that bubble. they can still do a lot of damage, but long-term, they are doomed, I think. or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Chris
@Little Boots:
Yeah, but at least those guys are freaks and outcasts.
Mnemosyne
So we got married in 2006. In the course of looking around at vendors for cake, flowers, photography, etc., there were a couple of times when I thought I liked a vendor but they flaked out prior to actually committing to doing our wedding.
If you were a baker or florist who really didn’t want to do gay weddings, all you would have to do is say, Sorry, we’re already booked up or I’m holding that spot for another client. There are plenty of ways to not do business with someone if you really don’t want to. That’s why every store and restaurant has one of those little We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To Anyone signs at the front.
So, no, I don’t believe these “persecuted” Christianists who whine that they’re not going to be allowed to turn down business. They can still turn down the business — they just can’t be dicks and say why. That’s all. The only right that’s been “taken away” from them is the right to be a dick to someone’s face.
Little Boots
@Chris:
and yeah, that is the best that can be hoped for.
Little Boots
@Mnemosyne:
I suspect this is true. number one reason people get sued isn’t incompetence or damage. it’s: guy was a dick! don’t be a dick, and you probably don’t have to do anything you don’t want.
Petorado
@Gex: The victim card won’t work when the very people sponsoring the bill were saying it shouldn’t become law. It’s coming across as a failure of conservative principles brought on by a victory for conservatives.
Little Boots
@Petorado:
they’re flailing. it’s fun.
sophronia
@Mnemosyne: Even if they do say why, current Arizona law does not protect anyone from discrimination because of their sexual preference. So this bill was completely unnecessary, just a sop to the mouthbreathers who vote these wingnut morons into the state legislature year after year.
Why did they do it? Because they’re wingnut morons. There seems to be some sort of unofficial law against electing anyone with a functioning brain cell to our state leg. We’ve got legislators who have pulled pistols on reporters, who have been married five times yet constantly preach about the sanctity of marriage, who not only don’t know the Ten Commandments but probably can’t spell “Bible.” But somehow, in the land of Sainted Barry Goldwater, they never seem to lose their elections.
karen
There’s a reason why the Tea Party hates the Rockefeller Republcans/Country Club Republicans.
Mnemosyne
@sophronia:
That, and because it’s the latest fad from ALEC’s less competent little brother, the Alliance Defending Freedom. The reason the bills in Kansas, Arizona, and other states are basically identical is that they were all written by the same group and basically faxed to the legislatures to rubber-stamp them.
sophronia
And another reason why they did it, IMO: The Supreme Court is about to issue an opinion in the Hobby Lobby case that may broaden religious protections considerably. I think the wingnut think tank behind the writing of SB1062 is anticipating victory in that case and getting all their ducks in a row to take maximum advantage of it once it’s decided.
So, either dumb or evil. I really hope they don’t know something about which way Hobby lobby is going to go.
Gex
@Petorado: Apple and the Super Bowl were threatened. That’s why I say they’ll blame the homofascists for forcing them to call for a veto. For them it is the best of both worlds. Trying to deliver for the Bible thumpers and giving business what they want. All while playing into the persecution complex and validating that they’re the real victims.
Hell they’ll be able to say, honestly, that they voted for it. Who knows how many of their constituents will know they vetoed? People tend to have very incomplete knowledge of what their legislators do.
Ian
@karen:
A measurable (even if insignificant) amount of sanity and reality?
debbie
@GregB:
No, but it couldn’t hurt to remind voters all over the country of the consequences of letting these clowns get into office.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Mnemosyne: Thanks for that linky. Notice the PS about a bill defining “any official” presiding over a wedding as a “minister” that can refuse to participate if their fee-fees are bothered. The details matter, but one could imagine this enabling them to refuse to sign marriage licenses or the like. It’s obviously an attempted nullification of the changes they know are coming.
:-/
Eternal vigilance…
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
Ohio’s GOP has now withdrawn their version of this bill. ALEC needs better writers.
Tractarian
Disagree. It is feasible that, within five years or so, a SCOTUS majority (the 4 “liberals” plus Roberts or Kennedy) will outlaw any sort of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Then it won’t matter what the octogenarian bigots do.
piratedan
@mdblanche: for Congressional districting not state offices
TerryC
@Little Boots: “I suspect this is true. number one reason people get sued isn’t incompetence or damage. it’s: guy was a dick! don’t be a dick, and you probably don’t have to do anything you don’t want.”
Every time the AMA studies it, this is what they find: Want to be sued? Act like a dick.
Howlin Wolfe
Fear the mighty “Oh, my!” bitchez!!