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After five full days of increasingly heated rhetoric and debate enveloping America’s national conversation, Republican governor Jan Brewer tonight put an end to the debate by vetoing Arizona‘s highly-controversial anti-gay legislation. The bill, SB-1062, marketed by anti-gay religious conservatives as a “religious freedom” bill, would have allowed anyone in the Grand Canyon State to deny anyone else service if they could claim not doing so would violate their “sincerely held” religious beliefs.
LOOK: Here’s Jan Brewer’s Letter Explaining Her Veto Of Anti-Gay Bill
Lamenting that SB-1062 is “broadly worded and could result in unintended and negative consequences,” Gov. Brewer said, “I sincerely believe that [the bill] has the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve. It could divide Arizona in ways that no one could imagine.”
“My agenda is to sign into law legislation that advances Arizona,” Brewer said. “I call them like I seem them despite the tears or the boos from the crowd.”
Gov. Brewer said the bill did not meet any of the needs or standards she laid out at the beginning of the legislative session.
“I’ve not herd one example in Arizona where business owners’ religious liberty was violated.”
“After weighing all of the arguments, I have vetoed SB 1062 moments ago,†Gov. Brewer concluded.
“Religious liberty is a core American value,” Brewer told reporters, adding, “so is non-discrimination.”
Late this afternoon, the NFL announced they were re-opening their search for a 2015 Super Bowl location, given that Brewer had yet to veto the bill and, should it become law, it would violate NFL anti-discrimination rules.
Major League Baseball this afternoon also responded, denouncing the legislation and urging a veto.
Brewer had vetoed a similar bill last year, but did so as part of a package of bills she promised to veto until lawmakers sent her a budget.
Much of the nation came out against the bill, including almost one hundred major corporations that do business in Arizona, three of the Republican senators who originally voted for the bill, Arizona’s Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, every major LGBT organization, politicians across the nation from both sides of the aisle, and seemingly, most people on social media, like Twitter and Facebook.
The national conversation has been rife with anti-gay and pro-religious rhetoric, and the media as well as Arizona lawmakers set up a false dichotomy — playing into the hands of the radical religious right — that religious freedom is incompatible with civil rights for the LGBT community. Of course, that’s a ludicrous argument, and a great many people of faith and religious groups voiced opposition to the wide-sweeping legislation.
Several other states have attempted to pass similar legislation, reportedly drafted with the support of anti-gay groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) but have been unsuccessful.
The bill, were Brewer to have signed it into law, would almost certainly have been struck down as unconstitutional.