When the week began, Arizona governor Jan Brewer thought she had all the time in the world to decide whether to veto Arizona’s “Gay Jim Crow” bill. By the middle of the week, Brewer learned differently. Conservatives lost it.
SB 1062, Arizona’s bill that would allow business to discriminate by refusing service to customers based on the business owner’s religious belief, followed close on the heels of a nearly identical bill in Kansas, was doomed from the start. The Kansas bill had focused public attention, so there was no way SB 1062 could fly under the radar. And unlike the Kansas bill, which the state Senate quashed before it ever reached the governor’s desk, SB 1062 cleared all the hurdles between tit and the governor’s desk.
Jobs, money, and the next Super Bowl were on the line. So when Brewer had to choose between placating the far-right, and vetoing a bill that would give Arizona a black-eye to match the one it got for its anti-immigrant laws, she made the only sane call.
The first signs of the freak out to come was the difference between responses from big media.
Here's the Washignton Post's response.
#BREAKING: Arizona governor vetoes controversial anti-gay bill
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 27, 2014
Here's the Wall Street Journal's Response.
Breaking: Arizona governor vetoes religious-freedom bill. http://t.co/tYCeEMbSEk — Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 27, 2014
It only got worse from there.
Former Rep. Joe Walsh said tweeted that the LGBT community has become "nothing more than a bunch of constitutional fascists."
The LGBT community has become nothing more than a group of constitutional terrorists #tcot
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) February 25, 2014
Walsh also scolded the rest of us to stop saying Brewer vetoed an anti-gay bill, warned that Christians will be forced to perform gay weddings, Catholics to hand out contraception.
Stop saying she vetoed an "anti-gay bill." Stop distorting reality to advance your liberal agenda, media. #tcot
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) February 27, 2014
Not sure what the GOP stands for when it stands against religious freedom out of pure fear of political correctness.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 27, 2014
Brewer veto shows that poorly informed hysteria works
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) February 27, 2014
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer makes Christians in her state second class citizens.
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) February 27, 2014
Wingnut reactions to Brewer's veto that make up most of the worst from the right-wing this week.
Nobody had more to say about SB 1062 than Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh claimed that Brewer was being "bullied" by the "homosexual lobby," and blamed Brewer's veto on "ajbect fear of minorities." (Because of course the world was so much better when everyone was afraid of white men.)
Pat Robertson called for the impeachment of Attorney General for "elevating sodomy" above the constitution, when Holder said he believed attorneys general could simply refuse to enforce anti-gay laws.