This was my comment to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer when I signed the petition asking her to veto SB1062:
Whom would Jesus refuse to serve? This bill isn't just un-Constitutional. It's un-Christian.
I'd love to think that her decision to veto the bill was because of people like myself who petitioned and protested this legislative abomination. I'm not naive. I'm quite sure it had much more to do with the business leaders who brought their cumulative corporate weight to bear. Arizona doesn't want the opinions of the little people so much as it wants their tourism dollars.
Either way, that particular crisis was averted. But hate is a hydra. A similar bill is gathering momentum in Georgia.
Georgia -- with its tumultuous past of discrimination -- is following Arizona's recently failed attempt to pass what amounts to anti-gay legislation with the Preservation of Religious Freedom Act.
The state may shift from the cradle of the civil rights movement to the vanguard of legalized 21st-century bigotry with the consideration of this legislation, modeled on Arizona's, that would allow businesses to refuse service to gay and lesbian customers on the basis of alleged religious conviction.