Forty-five years after the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village protesting police raids on gay bars, then the first “Gay Pride” marches a few years later – events which shocked many Americans more used to homosexuality remaining in the closet – the movement’s newest allies are strictly conventional: Chambers of Commerce, major business groups, and Republican lawmakers.
That’s clearly behind Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s veto of a “religious rights” bill allowing commercial enterprises to refuse doing business with gay individuals and couples, including those shopping for wedding products and services. The message from opponents of the bill had been heard loud and clear, and it wasn’t just gay rights groups.
As the Gannett news organization put it online:
“Apple, American Airlines, Marriott, and American Express strongly opposed the legislation, saying it would be bad for business. The Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee also called for a Brewer veto amid reports the NFL was looking at other sites for its 2015 championship game.
Editor’s note: Barack Obama is bad for business too, but these guys have no trouble supporting him.
2 Comments
In a secular society, the freedom for citizens to associate and discriminate should be paramount—as it once was in the early days of our late Republic. Discrimination can be virtuous, vicious or morally irrelevant. Religious and social pressure, along with the marketplace, are far more effective weapons against discriminatory injustice than the blunt instrument of godless government which will—in every dispute—choose a side. And usually the wrong one.
We’ll never learn.
Gov Brewer, was Pushed into a PC Corner, the BIG $, bought her Veto! How would a Secular Culture, approve such a Bill? All things, Right, are now Wrong!….All things Good, are now Bad! Even, an Ancient Prophet, in the OT, could foresee : This would Happen!