There Otta Be A Law

So, we’ll see if I can get this post written before Governor Brewer vetoes the thing, but I do feel, as a desert boy bred and born, that I should write a little about Arizona’s SB1062. Not, really, about the substance of the bill—it’s a preposterous bill that would not pass constitutional muster even with the current Supreme Court, so it’s not really worth delving into the details of the thing. No, I tell a lie, it is worth doing that, if only to be prepared of other, less obviously preposterous assaults in the legislatures of others of our United States, but other people (including Adam Serwer over at MSNBC) have done the delving better than I could, so that’s all right. No, mostly I want to talk about some strange political incentives going on.

Saw @GovBrewer in Washington tonight. Encouraged her personally to #VetoSB1062

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) February 25, 2014

I hope Governor Brewer will veto #SB1062

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) February 24, 2014

Veto RT @Crossfire If you were Governor of AZ would you sign or veto the bill?Reply w/ Sign or Veto using #Crossfire pic.twitter.com/hoL3PUz6Ku

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 25, 2014

Remember that Gov. Brewer, in ordinary circumstances, would be in the mix of possible candidates for her Party’s presidential nomination in 2016, and ought to be on a short list for Vice-Presidential consideration—yes, she’s seventy, but in the list of female Senators-and-Governors, she’s got the re-election cred with a thirteen point spread in an important state. On the other hand, Senator McCain needs nothing from nobody nohow at this point. On the other other hand, Senator Flake is almost certainly looking at a primary challenge from someone that will call him a RINO. On the Other Other Other hand, each of these people have different groups of people to work and negotiate with and keep happy in order to achieve various goals for the remainder of their current terms.

So, what’s interesting about all this? What’s interesting to me is that we are at a point where the incentives are very odd, and that those odd incentives arise (it seems to me) from great big chunks of the electorate living in a different world than other big chunks of the electorate. Are you living in an Elane Photography, LLC v. Vanessa Willock (or, if you prefer, an Elane Photography, LLC v. Vanessa Willock world, in which people are getting sued (and losing!) when they choose their own business associations based on their religious convictions? Or are you living in a, well, the world I live in, where such lawsuits are rare, and discrimination against minority groups is far more frequent? A Hobby Lobby world, where Catholics who oppose the use of contraceptives are being forced to fund contraceptive use, or a Hobby Lobby world where employees of a secular business establishment are being deprived of federally-regulated minimal health care standards?

Watching my social networks, which include a good double-handful of Arizonans selected more by where our parents lived in the 1980s than by any shared worldview, I am seeing two basic categories. First, people who are outraged by their legislature’s stupidity and mean-spiritedness, and who want their Governor to veto the bill. And second, people who really (as far as I can tell over the internet) think that they are at risk from lawsuits, either against them or their family and friends. Photographers, massage therapists, and attorneys who fear that they will, in choosing their clients, inadvertently offend some militant liberal and lose their livelihood—OK, those occupations are examples, but that’s the sort of thing I’m seeing.

And while, from my perch in New England where same-sex marriage has not resulted in billions of lawsuits and in Christians becoming a tiny, impoverished underclass, it’s pretty clear what world we’re living in… at the same time, there was certainly a ton of litigation after the civil rights legislation went through in the sixties. Yes, there were probably a bunch of people who (plausibly out of sincere religious belief, in the mainstream of the time) treated black folk as second-class citizens and lost their livelihoods. There were golf clubs that folded rather than admit that minority group; there were restaurants that closed and photographers that were sued and real estate agencies and banks that had to pay fines. All of that.

Will it happen here? Well, Arizona does not actually have civil rights protections for homosexuals (or more accurately, protections against being discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation), so this bill will not actually change very much. If, however, at some point such legislation was passed, then yes, those kinds of lawsuits could happen. If it turns out that banks are refusing to lend to same-sex couples, yes, they could be sued. If it turns out that real estate agencies are refusing to show same-sex couples homes outside the gay neighborhoods, well, that’s perfectly legal in Arizona now, but would not be if protections were to be extended there as they are in (f’r’ex) New Mexico. If Catholic Hospitals refused to serve homosexuals—remember Bessie Smith?—well, that’s not actually legal at all, at least for life-threatening situations and so on. But doctors and lawyers and contractors who can currently discriminate in choosing patients do face a future (without SB1062 and with a putative amended state civil rights bill or possible federal recognition of protected class status) in which they will not be able to do so with impunity.

I hope.

So, as I say, it’s interesting to see where politicians see the future lying. It’s not with the people who, possibly correctly, fear those lawsuits. It’s with the people who are willing to bring them.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.