We Reserve the Right

This pic’s (at right, in the window of Rocco's Little Chicago Pizzeria in Tucson) been making the rounds of the intertoobz since those dinosaur brained, midget dicked republican legislators of Arizona brought forth SB1062/HB2153 -- this travesty, this license to dis.

From the NY Times:

The Arizona Legislature passed a measure on Thursday that allows business owners asserting their religious beliefs to refuse service to gays and others, drawing backlash from Democrats who called the proposal “state-sanctioned discrimination” and an embarrassment.
The 33-to-27 vote by the House sent the legislation to Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican.
The bill is backed by the Center for Arizona Policy, a social conservative group that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. It says that the proposal is needed to protect against increasingly activist federal courts and that it clarifies existing state law.

You can put whatever dry, colorless, seemingly respectable name you’d like on an organization but that doesn’t make it different from the Klan beyond, possibly, the method of the kill.

There’s a fab OpEd  over at CNN by Matthew C. Whitaker. He's a professor of history and founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Arizona State University and also the author of "Peace Be Still: Modern Black America From World War II to Barack Obama."

Specifically, the bill protects all individuals, businesses and religious institutions from discrimination lawsuits if they can show that their discriminatory actions were motivated by religious convictions.
Under the guise of religious freedom, however, the bill would enable businesses potentially to discriminate against virtually anyone -- not just Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, agnostics and atheists, but also unwed mothers, Rastafarians and Budweiser T-shirt wearers. This bill is arbitrary, capricious and antithetical to the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood that inform our documents of freedom

Go read the whole piece. It’s not long and he totes cuts to the meat of the matter.

“No, you can't deny women their basic rights and pretend it's about your 'religious freedom'. If you don't like birth control, don't use it. Religious freedom doesn't mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs.”

-- Barack Obama on the horseshit American Taliban asswipes and one other element of their War on Women and, for that matter, reality.

This latest travesty from Arizona is another part of the right wing war on the 21st century. If you want to be a business owner in America in 2014 but only cater to folks you approve of -- well, boyhowdy, maybe you ought to reevaluate what it means to be a businessman, an American or, for that matter, a human being.

I only mention it but gay, lesbian, brown, red, white, Jewish, Catholic, Islam and even Baptist money all spends the same way. Perhaps that wasn't covered in these brain deadedly, thimble hearted, snail feces souled excuses for humankind's Biz 101 courses though.

An then there’s this exchange from a pal’s Facebook exchange:

Commenter 1:
I, unfortunately, have to visit there (Arizona) shortly. Will they have the separate water fountains set up by then?
Commenter 2: 

There are places no man should have to venture.

Your analogy is is apt. And striking, and disturbing in that it doesn't seem all that improbable. I don't tend to go much for comparing things to Jim Crow, Nazis, stuff like that, but this kind of thing is right up there. We'll always have bigotry, but the fact that a 21st century US legislature could seriously consider passing legislation that guarantees people the right not to have serve people based on orientation is just fucking mind-boggling.

OK, here's my prediction: Brewer is a certified dipshit, but she doesn't sign the bill. Business is gonna call the shots here. And there are a whole lot of them, in state and out, who see this is as nothing but a major headache for them, and are just anticipating waves of demands that they stop doing business in state. Sometimes the markets wind up doing good.

But still. I can't even wrap my head around this.

I hope commenter 2 is right in his prediction.

Rocco's Little Chicago Pizzeria in Tucson isn’t the only place making it damned clear that they welcome everyone. These signs are going up in more and more businesses. GOOD!

Jen and I will be going out to visit Jenny this next autumn. Maybe we’ll hit The Grand Canyon and Sedona. Maybe we’ll motor down to Rocco’s in Tucson. Maybe, if this pageant of prejudice become law, Jenny could meet us in New Mexico instead.

Religious freedom means I get to say your religion-inspired bigotry is bullshit.

Every holy book is a potential gun & every person is a potential bullet.

When conservatives say "politically correct" they mean "I miss the days when my hatred was publicly acceptable."

-- Sherman Alexie