By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — What happened when a southern California photographer refused the business of a man because she disagreed with his lifestyle?
The rejected customer probably slammed a lawsuit onto her and denounced her bigotry at a packed media conference. By the next day, the photographer’s reputation was being flayed from coast to coast.
Actually not. Because in this case the customer was a national conservative leader, Alan Sears, head of the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defending Freedom.
Sears simply took his business elsewhere last year — he’d wanted to arrange a Christmas card photo with his family — and said he didn’t want to compromise the photographer’s conscience.
The incident was recounted in a January 23 story in the conservative Washington Times, “Conservative turned down by photographer but says it’s OK.”
Concern over compulsion already was a topic on many people’s minds because of Barack Obama’s federal mandate to force people to violate their consciences for Obamacare, as well as growing efforts by the left-wing to compel individuals to pay honor to homosexual partnerships.
It wasn’t conservatives trying to enforce this compulsion. It was left-wingers who insisted on intruding.
Then came the latest explosion in Arizona after the legislature sent Senate Bill 1062, designed to protect religious freedom, to Gov. Jan Brewer for consideration in late February. Not surprisingly, the explosion was touched off by Arizona’s own corrupt, backstage collection of liberals, big-business interests, establishmentarians, and media string-pullers.
The equally corrupt national establishment heard the dog whistle and quickly piled on.
On the other hand, conservative national radio talk host Mike Gallagher said the morning of February 26 that he was favorably impressed by homosexual callers to his program saying they don’t want to force anyone to bake them a cake. But some militants do, Gallagher said.
The Arizona establishment gang likes to bully, threaten, and lie to get what it wants, and it really wants to push the homosexual agenda onto this state.
Recall when SB 1070 passed the state legislature in 2010 to answer Arizonans’ pleas for help against massive illegal immigration. The establishment gang is very open-borders. Any resistance from the public must be thwarted.
The lies started flying, fast and furious. Police would be able to crash through neighborhoods to jail anyone who looked Hispanic. Raw racism was the motivation for 1070. Barack Obama jumped in, warning that people going out to the ice cream shop would be harassed.
Actually not, unless the buyer was trying to rob the shop.
The Arizona gang’s idea was that if enough people could be fooled, the nation would rise up against SB 1070. However, when people actually read it, they supported it.
And Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed 1070 into law because she knew that doing so would strengthen her faltering election campaign that year.
The Arizona gang turned to its same strategy for SB 1062. If the gang guys could circulate enough brazen lies and hysteria fast and far enough through their business and media networks, it could be killed. This wasn’t a religious-freedom bill, the gang glowered; it was an “anti-gay bill.”
People interested in the way that the world really works had to take note. What kind of power and connections are churning away every day behind the scenes?
Quickly, a lineup of powerful national business interests demanded that Brewer veto 1062. Arizona would be punished economically if she refused. The losing 2012 Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, chimed in, too.
The National Football League threatened to yank the Super Bowl, scheduled next year in the Phoenix area. Major League Baseball issued a grotesquely twisted statement as if the issue at hand was engaging in “harassment or discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
How many folks do you know who could orchestrate this kind of strident chorus almost overnight around the nation against one brief piece of state legislation? How many bills against third-trimester abortion could garner fealty instantly from corporate big feet and major-league sports?
This is the sort of behind-the-scenes back-scratching and deal-making that the elitists are positioned for all the time, but they just had to get out in the open faster and more plainly this time. We, the public, are just hogtied to their backs for the bruising Southwest rodeo ride.
Most GOP gubernatorial candidates here, fearing the wrath of wealthy potential donors and angry pundits, quickly ran away from 1062. However, conservative State Sen. Al Melvin issued a statement to The Wanderer on February 23:
“I was disappointed how fast my fellow Republican candidates for governor caved to the media and liberal pressure. Each of them offered excuses, but none of them were willing to stand up and publicly fight to protect the religious liberties of Arizonan citizens and businesses.
“I am proud of my vote for SB 1062 in the Arizona Senate and I would sign this bill if I were governor. We should all be standing tall to protect the religious liberties of every Arizonan. SB 1062 does that,” Melvin said.
“My hope is that Arizonans will rally to fight for this bill by contacting the governor and asking her to sign it. If she does not, then I hope they will rally to my campaign so that we can elect someone who will sign the bill in 2015,” he said.
A Melvin supporter told The Wanderer: “The problem that Christian voters and Christian businesses face is that with the rare exception of a Chick-fil-A or a Hobby Lobby, they are almost exclusively small businesses and mom-and-pop shops. So they don’t get their views represented by the Chambers of Commerce or trade associations that are dominated by multi-billion-dollar companies.”
After Brewer flew back to Phoenix on February 25 from a Washington, D.C., conference, the blaring bullhorn and smear artist of the corruptocrats, The Arizona Republic, published a front-page airport photo of her little figure in the distance descending from the plane, as if she were a strange space alien bringing unknown tidings to earthlings. Brewer hadn’t announced her decision on the bill yet.
Lies, lies, and more lies against SB 1062. This is the America of brazen, bold liar Barack Obama. Lies are to get what the gangsters and their corrupt cronies want, not what’s good for the people, who are tossed off their medical plans or tossed into the Coliseum with their hands tied behind their backs.
The lions hadn’t been let loose in the pagan arena yet, but the gang mob safely in the stands swoons for the arrival of that spectacle.
On February 26, Alliance Defending Freedom revealed that a suburban Phoenix business owner who stated her support of SB 1062 “has received numerous hate e-mails, including one that wishes her and her children dead.” The death threat was said to read, “Die You ****. And I Hope Your Children Die Too. You Hateful **** Demon.”
Hoping to correct the bold lies against the bill, 11 prominent law professors from around the nation sent Brewer a four-page analysis dated February 25, saying, “The bill has been egregiously misrepresented by many of its critics. We write because we believe that you should make your decision on the basis of accurate information.
“Some of us are Republicans; some of us are Democrats,” the professors wrote. “Some of us are religious; some of us are not. Some of us oppose same-sex marriage; some of us support it. Nine of the 11 signers of this letter believe that you should sign the bill; two are unsure. But all of us believe that many of the criticisms of the Arizona bill are deeply misleading.”
The professors’ schools included Harvard, Stanford, Notre Dame, the University of Virginia, Wayne State, George Mason, and the University of Illinois.
Kellie Fiedorek, a litigation counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote in a commentary posted February 26 at the Phoenix area’s Tribune news site: “SB 1062 merely clarifies Arizona’s existing law to protect Arizonans from any attempt by the government to force them to speak or act in ways that violate their religious beliefs. It safeguards freedom by closing loopholes that have allowed other state governments to punish private citizens for living and working according to their convictions. . . .
“Despite the simple, commonsense purpose of the bill, its opponents have turned it into something it is not,” she wrote. “It would not allow a business owner to refuse someone a meal or a taxi ride. There’s a key distinction between selling someone paint and allowing the government to force you to paint a mural with a message that violates your deepest beliefs.”
Brewer, fearing a foul fate for herself amidst the stench of the media gales, announced the evening of February 26 that she vetoed the measure. Christians can deal with the lions on their own.
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