Today was another terrible, horrible, no good day for “religious” bigots in America. I put that word in quotes, because they only feign religiosity. All they really are is grotesquely ignorant, small-minded, bitter, sniveling imbeciles. The breaking news, as I write this, is that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed SB 1062 – the bill passed by both houses of the Arizona legislature which would have permitted anti-gay (and other forms of) discrimination by people and businesses… as long as the discrimination was said to come from “deeply held religious beliefs.” Oh, bite me!
Jim Crow Museum, Ferris State Univ
Governor Brewer’s veto should not be construed as support for the notion of equal civil rights for all Arizonans. There are hundreds of millions of other reasons for her veto – in the form of a guaranteed financial hit to Arizona’s economy and state tax revenues. Most of the major companies headquartered or doing business in Arizona came out publicly against this bigoted law. The real coup de grace was a thinly veiled warning from the National Football League that Phoenix would lose next year’s Super Bowl if this abominable license to discriminate were to become law. Remember that Arizona has unique experience losing a Super Bowl to state-sanctioned bigotry. In 1993, Super Bowl XXVII was moved from Phoenix to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena because Arizona refused to recognize the federal holiday honoring Dr Martin Luther King Jr. The ghosts of 1993’s debacle apparently still haunt the AZ governor’s chambers in 2014.
This veto is not a surprise. Nor is the failure of other such bills in the states which have recently attempted to enact anti-gay discrimination under the guise of so-called “religious freedom”. Kansas, South Dakota, 
Tennessee, Oregon, Idaho, Maine and Georgia have all gone down this rutted road recently. Arizona was just the first state to get a bill on its governor’s desk. It may not be the last. So, good news that Arizona today rejected a law that would have permitted businesses to turn away customers they don’t like. Fifty years later, and the bigots are still trying to serve up steaming piles of Jim Crow – this time aimed at LGBT Americans. And of course, it’s the same thing in all the states attempting to restrict voting access for people of color, students and the elderly. What a proud chapter in America’s ongoing fight for social justice! The Republicans are behind these noxious attempts at legislative discrimination, and they should hang their heads in shame. We already know how history will view them and their supporters: with the same revulsion that civilized people reserve for the Jim Crow signage displayed on this page. And that is exactly how offensive these fraudulent excuses for hatred are.
But wait! For most of the day, Arizona wasn’t even the biggest story on the bigot-busting beat. No! That spotlight belonged to Texas – where a federal judge ruled its ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia issued the ruling which struck down Texas’ 2003 law banning same-sex marriage as well as its 2005 state constitutional ban. In his opinion, Judge Garcia wrote:
Today’s court decision is not made in defiance of the great people of Texas or the Texas Legislature, but in compliance with the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedent. Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our U.S. Constitution.
Frankly, it’s getting difficult to keep up with all the action in the courts. In the last two months alone, there have been at least six federal court rulings declaring anti-gay marriage bans to be unconstitutional, in the reddest of states: Texas, Kentucky, Virginia, Oklahoma, Utah and Ohio. And with more than a dozen active cases being pursued in other states, this list will inevitably grow. Some of these cases will be 
appealed to the Circuit Courts, others will not – and that is a Red State / Blue State divide. Given the Supreme Court’s ruling last June invalidating DOMA (the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act”), it is virtually a foregone conclusion that federal judges will find state laws restricting marriage to heterosexuals to be unconstitutional. And as it did with all the district court rulings striking down DOMA, the Supreme Court will likely consolidate whatever cases rise through the Courts of Appeal in the various circuits – and decide the question of marriage equality in this country, once and for all.
It has been ten years since Massachusetts became the first state in the country to endorse marriage equality. Since then, the following states have joined that growing list: California, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, District of Columbia, New York, Washington State, Maryland, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Delaware, New Jersey, Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico. We are rapidly approaching half of the population of the country living in marriage equality states, with the federal government now automatically recognizing all legal marriages. The remaining state bans will continue to be challenged until they all fall. Unless the Supreme Court expedites that result with a ruling echoing Loving v. Virginia which struck down the interracial marriage bans in this country. If you’re keeping score at home, the Washington Post has a terrific interactive map of marriage equality status in the states. Check back often, as they say.
Day 051 #100happydays
The End 