The Arizona State Legislature recently passed a bill onto Governor Brewer that would, according to an ABC report:

The bill … establishes a set of needed guidelines for when this potential defense could be used in court:
– The person’s action or refusal to act is motivated by a religious belief
– The person’s religious belief is sincerely held
– The state action substantially burdens the exercise of the person’s religious beliefs

As a resident of Arizona, one of the things that troubled me, along with the content of the bill itself, is that it came completely unexpected: there was no public debate, no attempt to gauge its support, or lack thereof, among the Arizona citizenry. We all just simply read about it in the newspaper or saw reports on TV or the Internet.

How does a bill of such import make it through both Houses with absolutely no public input?

Rather than take time expressing outrage or arguing extensively that this is precisely the kind of double-think that Orwell deplored — I am protecting religion by allowing you to exercise or fail to exercise any business action if that action would violate your “sincerely held” religious beliefs, even where these might otherwise be prejudicial or illegal — I’d like to focus on some other questions, specifically, is this representative of the people of Arizona? (Parenthetically, Arizona has no law against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation).

Many here in Tucson would say it is not representative. For Tucson, that is almost certainly true, but for Arizona as a whole? I don’t know, but I am troubled that the elected legislature might actually represent accurately the beliefs of the majority, as least of the majority that votes and elects. The tenor of political discussion here at the state level is impossibly narrow, and very conservative, anti-government, anti-poor, and steeped in the belief of the self-reliant Western individual that is myth, not reality.

Barry Goldwater would not be elected here to a state office today. Ditto the Udalls. John McCain has been censured by his own party for crossing over to vote with Democrats. Governor Brewer, Obama finger waggling aside, I have come to see as positive break on the majority right wing of her party. So far, in the three plus years I have lived here, she has mostly vetoed the most heinous bills of her party, and has, with regrets almost certainly, implemented the Affordable Care Act because she understands, as a businesswoman, that you don’t leave billions on the table to satisfy narrow ideology.

It is my expectation that she will veto this bill. It is my expectation that her party will condemn her while at the same time playing to the their base on the unresponsive, anti-Christian, anti-religion, pro-gay, pro-<put in your favorite> nature of the government in Phoenix. It is also my expectation that these same legislators will also continue to be re-elected. And should that be the case, we will have to conclude that the blame lies with those who live and vote here. As my wife asked when this all began, “And you want to retire here??”

I no longer know.