Arizona & Mississippi: A Tale of Two States and Anti-Gay Religious Bigotry

As most of you know, Arizona's SB1062 was vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer after passage by the Republican dominated Arizona Legislature.  What a lot of you might not know, thanks to our feckless media, is that Mississippi's legislature not only passed a bill almost identical to Arizona's vetoed SB1062, but that Mississippi's Republican Governor Phil Bryant signed it into law last week.

That's right, Mississippi now has legalized religiously based discrimination towards gays and lesbians (and anyone else they don't like).  Now, Mississippi has never been a hotbed of equality towards gays as it doesn't have an employment non-discrimination law nor does it have a housing non-discrimination law.  But this law codifies such discrimination toward gays and lesbians in all aspects of their lives in the state of Mississippi.

But why did Governor Brewer veto such legislation while Governor Bryant signed such legislation into law?  The short answer?  We gays and lesbians, with the help of our allies as well as state and national business interests, were able to shine a powerful spotlight on Arizona.  That spotlight forced Governor Brewer to put the needs of the state above religious bigotry.  It was fairly easy to shine that spotlight on Arizona as it has a recent history of discriminatory laws, such as the infamous "living while brown law", SB1070.

Mississippi was able to fly under the media wire and not be forced into the spotlight because it has no major league sports team, isn't vying to be the home of a new Tesla factory and a host of other high tech companies.  We gays and lesbians had no chance to stop the legislation, even though we all knew about it, even if the so called "liberal" MSM was asleep at the wheel.  We had no allies to bring to bear and assert political pressure.  As much as we wanted to prevent such legislation, let alone it becoming law, it just was never going to be.

Hopefully the courts will be able to strike down this religiously based bigotry law.

Arizona Republicans: Destroying Arizona One Law At A Time

Elected Republicans in Arizona have done a lot of damage over the years.  Besides constantly cutting taxes they have:

Cut off new enrollment for adults without children in the state’s Medicaid program AHCCCS.

Voted against extending unemployment benefits to be paid for by the Federal government.

Created quasi-private “charter” schools in the name of “school choice”.

Created tax credits for those who donate to “scholarship funds” for private and parochial schools.

Enacted the infamous “living while brown” law known as SB1070.

Raided special funds of the Department of Transportation, forcing the closure of Arizona’s rest stops.

Raided special funds of the State’s park department forcing the closure of most of the state parks.

Sold off the state capital buildings in a complex lease-buy-back scheme.

Cut public school funding.

And that’s just some of the damage that elected Republicans have done to Arizona.  But Republicans aren’t content with the damage they have done.  Now that they face the prospect of losing their death grip on the Arizona legislature this November, they are hell bent inflicting even more damage upon Arizona.

One state legislator has introduced a bill requiring public schools to offer as an elective a course on the Bible and its influence on Western society.  Another legislator has introduced a bill requiring that a class devoted to the “free markets” be passed in order for a student to graduate from public schools.  Yet another legislator has proposed increasing the tax credit given to those who donate to private and parochial school “scholarship funds”.  It should be noted that the same legislator is the head of such an “scholarship” organization.

Speaker Andy Tobin is pushing to have his secretly designed redistricting maps approved by voters in a special election.  Other legislators are pushing to put up for vote the elimination of the AIRC and to allow the legislature once again to determine redistricting maps.

Now the Republicans want to strip all public employees at every level of government in the state of their right to collectively bargain.  It is not enough that Arizona is a so called “right to work” state.  No, they want to destroy the last major unions in the state, the public unions.  Firefighters, police, teachers, etc would all be disallowed from collectively bargain.  Plus, union dues could no longer be automatically deducted from their paychecks.

Elected Republicans know that any damage they do before the elections this November won’t be easily repaired or reversed, if at all.  They know that because constitutionally it takes a super majority of both house of the legislature for any tax increase, that their tax cuts will stand.  They know that because taxes can’t be reversed that their cuts to public education and the social safety net will stand.

So, the damage will continue and the future of Arizona isn’t looking so good.

Something To Believe In

It seems this presidential election year has been going on forever and its only January 22, 2012!  It doesn’t help that myriad candidates for the Republican nomination have been running since the election of 2008 ended with the victory of then Senator Barak Obama.  It also doesn’t help that there have been 17 (I know, the number seems like it should be much, much higher) Republican debates since May 5, 2011 with the 18^th scheduled for tomorrow night.

Even as someone who has politics running through their veins, I am getting worn out.  Politics is a blood sport, no matter how “civil” we profess we want it to be and in 2011 the blood flowed in many parts of the nation.  The upper Midwest was a key battleground for politics as Republican governors and their very supportive Republican controlled legislatures sought to eliminate the ability of public employees to collectively bargain.  In Wisconsin and Ohio the citizenry fought back and at least in Ohio have won and in Wisconsin Governor Walker is facing a recall election.

In an effort to diminish the ability of voters to participate in elections, many Republican controlled legislatures are attempting to enact draconian “voter identification” laws.  Hell, even federal probationer James O’Keefe looks like he headed a conspiracy to violate both Federal and New Hampshire election law to “prove” the need for voter identification laws.  Of course we all know that the Republicans’ love for voter identification laws is bullshit considering that no one had to provide photo identification to participate in the Iowa Republican Presidential Caucuses.

In Florida anyone receiving government assistance became required to be drug tested until a Federal judge halted the law.  Now it seems Congressional Republicans would like to have even those receiving unemployment insurance benefits to be drug tested.  I wonder if maybe we should require those in Congress and their staff to submit to drug tests.

In Arizona, author of the infamous “papers, please” SB1070 and State Senate President, Russell Pearce, was successfully “recalled” in historic election.  The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission was attacked from the very start by the shadow group FAIR Trust and state “tea party” movement members, not to mention Governor Brewer and Republicans in the legislature.  AIRC Chairwoman Colleen Mathis was removed by Governor Brewer and Senate Republicans only to be reinstated by the Arizona Supreme Court.  The attacks against the AIRC and Chairwoman Mathis were about preserving the Republican super majority in the Arizona Legislature and the seats of incumbent Congressional Republicans.

In September, the U.S. military formally said goodbye to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as gays and lesbians were finally allowed to serve openly for the first time in our nation’s history.  This, of course, caused undue stress for Republican Presidential Nominee Candidates as they promised to reinstate DADT while debate audience members booed a gay Army officer.

But now it is 2012 and President Obama is ramping up his reelection campaign, presenting “gifts” to all the liberals he cheated on when bowing Republican demands in 2011.  First he recessed appointed Richard Cordray to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as Sharon Block, Terence Flynn and Richard Griffin to the National Labor Relations Board.  Then he tabled approval of the Keystone XL permit application until 2013.  Of course, these actions by the President are supposed to make liberals forget the last three years when we were chastised repeatedly for not supporting his milquetoast presidency.

As Senator Jon Kyl is retiring this year, Democrats will nominate someone who is Republican-lite to run against Congressman Jeff Flake and they will do the same in my new Congressional district.  I won’t be alone as a liberal Democrat since even after redistricting there are four “safe” Republican Congressional districts, two “safe” Democratic Congressional districts and three “competitive” districts.  That means that Arizona Democrats will be running Republican-lite candidates in at least seven of Arizona’s nine districts.

I just wish there was at least one candidate I could vote for instead of against their opponent.  I wish there was one candidate come Election Day who truly believed in and acted for the enactment of liberal ideals.  Is it too much to ask for a candidate to give me something to believe in?

Republicans and Family Values or Lack Thereof

Since 1980, the Republicans have been hammering away that they and only they are the defenders of "family values".  Since 1980 all I have seen from Republicans is one attack after another on families, especially non-traditional families.  Yet, for some reason, the Republican Party is still able to say with a straight face that they are the only party of family values.

Mind you, this is the party that hates public education.  This is the party that hates Medicare and Medicaid.  This is the party that hates equal rights for gays and lesbians.  This is the party that attacks unions, both private and public sector.  This is the party that pushes for unbridled corporate welfare while pushing to cut government subsidies to the working poor.

This is the party that impeached a president for getting a blow job in the Oval Office from someone other than their spouse while the Speaker of the House, a member of the Republican Party, was having an extramarital affair on his second wife.   This is the party that wants to strip the EPA of their authority to regulate coal mining.

This is the party that endorses Arizona's SB1070 which has the stated goal of "enforcement of attrition".  This is the party that doesn't believe that those born on American soil are automatic citizens.  This is the party that believes that corporations are persons.

This is the party that wants to defund Headstart.  This is the party that wants to cut funding for Pell Grants.  This is the party that wants to remove all federal funding for Planned Parenthood.   This is the party that wants medical insurance companies to have the ability to rescind a policy that has been paid for.  This is the party that thinks unemployment benefits only make the unemployed lazy.

This is the party of family values?