Tag Archives: CNN

From 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.

To borrow from the Robot Devil, this bill is as lousy as it is bigoted.

CNN’s interview with Rep. John Kavanagh who supported this bill is straight-up crazy. This guy is a legislator and he can’t effectively communicate how this bill would actually work any better than some random person interviewed on the street who isn’t wearing pants. Apparently, the freedom to be a religious bigot extends to independent contractors (wedding photographers) and small business owners but not to a waitress at a diner who doesn’t want to serve a gay couple. Huh? What possible legal principle is at work here to distinguish the two? Rep. Kavanagh claims the “burden” the religious feel when dealing with icky gay people has to be high, which taking pictures of drunk people dancing poorly at a gay wedding is, but refusing to rent a room to that newly married couple isn’t. That’s absurd on its face, because bed and breakfasts don’t allow children under a certain age so it’s not that much of a legal stretch, especially with this law on the books, for them to not rent to homosexual couples.

Of course, the gooey center of logic supporting the bill probably serves its purpose in making life miserable for gay Arizona residents and swell for local attorneys, who homosexuals can have on retainer to look into every discriminatory action they face. What a country!

We are tripping over dead kids from gun violence and that’s not enough for a gun bill. Arizona’s own congressional representative is permanently disabled after being shot in broad daylight in a public place and that’s not enough for a gun bill. But my god, someone might have to photograph two gay men slow dancing. Time to legislate!