Governor Brewer vetoes S.B. 1062

300px_JanBrewer_CityBckgrd_2013_MDPHOENIX – Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona, announced her decision to veto the controversial Arizona S.B. 1062.

In her statement released on the Governor’s web site, she wrote:

I took the time necessary to make the RIGHT decision. I met or spoke with my attorneys, lawmakers and citizens supporting and opposing this legislation.

As Governor, I have protected religious freedoms when there is a specific and present concern that exists in OUR state.

And I have the record to prove it.

She said that the bill does not address specific current concerns of the State. “I have not heard of one example in Arizona where a business owner’s religious liberty has been violated,” she said. In her veto letter, she wrote:

The concerns raised by the proponents of this bill are not unfounded. As a result of actions taken by the Obama Administration, as well as some federal and out-of-state courts, I am increasingly concerned about government’s encroachment upon our religious freedom.

In a later paragraph she notes,

Senate Bill 1062, however, does not seek to address a specific and present concern related to Arizona businesses. The out-of-state examples cited by proponents of the bill, while concerning, are issues not currently existing in Arizona.

She stated that she recognizes that religious belief about marriage is being challenged as never before. The Senate bill, she feels, had the potential to create more problems than it would solve.

On Religious Liberty, Arizona Gets it Right and NY Times Gets it Wrong Again

The headline reads “A License to Discriminate.” And the New York Times editorial board goes on to claim that Arizona has just passed “noxious measures to give businesses and individuals the broad right to deny services to same-sex couples in the name of protecting religious liberty.” The Times got it wrong. The proposed legislation never even mentions same-sex couples; it simply clarifies and improves existing state protections for religious liberty. And as the multitude of lawsuits against the coercive HHS mandate and the cases of photographers, florists and bakers show, we need protection for religious liberty now more than ever.

In 1993, overwhelming bipartisan majorities of both houses of congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The Act states that the federal government “shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless it can demonstrate that such a burden “is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest” and “is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling interest.”

In 1999 the state of Arizona passed similar legislation that prevents the state government from similarly burdening the free exercise of religion. The bill that the Arizona legislature just passed is an amendment to the 1999 state RFRA clarifying that the protections extend to any “state action” and would apply to “any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, religious assembly or institution or other business organization.” In other words, it protects all citizens and the associations they form from undue burdens by the government on their religious liberty or from private lawsuits that would have the same result.

Respecting religious liberty for all those in the marketplace is particularly important. After all, as first lady Michelle Obama put it, religious faith “isn’t just about showing up on Sunday for a good sermon and good music and a good meal. It’s about what we do Monday through Saturday as well.”

Read more at The Foundry