The Arizona ‘religious rights’ bill — and where the fight might move next

[cbayer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/02/24/the-states-fighting-the-fight-between-religious-rights-vs-gay-rights/

BY JAIME FULLER
February 24 at 6:30 am
Updated at 11:30 a.m.

Arizona lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that allows businesses in the state to deny service to LGBT customers on religious grounds. The bill has not been signed by Gov. Jan Brewer (R), who told reporters at the National Governors Association this week that she was in no rush to decide the bill's fate.


More than 200 marchers walk from the Wingspan office along North Fourth Avenue to the Governor's office at 400 W Congress St. in Tucson, Ariz., Friday, Feb. 21, 2014, to rally against the State Legislature's passage of the
More than 200 marchers walk to the governor's office in Tucson, Ariz., Friday to rally against the State legislature's passage of the "religious freedom bill." (AP Photo/Arizona Daily Star, A.E. Araiza)


As states and federal courts have slowly expanded gay rights, groups pushing for increased religious protections have tried to coax momentum in the other direction, through both law and lawsuit.

The catalyst for the recent flood of religious exemption legislation seems to have been a number of court cases that were decided in favor of LGBT clients who were denied wedding services. In August 2013, the New Mexico Supreme Court said that a photographer who refused to document a same-sex commitment ceremony broke the state's anti-discrimination law. The Washington state attorney general filed a consumer-protection suit against a florist who declined to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding ceremony. A state judge in Colorado ruled last December that a baker can't send away same-sex customers for religious reasons.

A similar religious exemption battle is brewing over the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius — which deal with the companies' religious reservations about providing the mandated contraception coverage — on March 25, 2014.

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[trotsky]

1. Well, when we insist that religious beliefs are special,

that they are "other ways of knowing," that they aren't (and should never be) subject to intense questioning and/or rational analysis, we help enable this kind of shit.