As the state prepares for Gov. Jan Brewer’s decision on SB 1062, downtown community, business and student leaders continue to oppose the bill.
Across downtown Phoenix and the state, business owners have been hanging up signs with the Arizona flag bearing the slogan “Open for Business to Everyone.”
The posters originated from a collaboration between ONE Community, a Phoenix-based organization that coordinates events and communication among LGBT business leaders as well as the local sign and printing company Fastsigns on Central Avenue between McDowell and Thomas roads.
Angela Hughey, co-founder of ONE Community, said the signs are about reversing a perception that Arizonans are intolerant.
“We want everyone to know Arizona is a welcoming state,” Hughey said. “We wanted citizens throughout Arizona to be able to do something that was positive and that was actionable.”
Fastsigns owner Scott Koehler printed and hung a 12-by-30-foot banner on the side of his building and decided to develop signs that business owners could hang in their windows to oppose the bill. Hughey said 2,200 signs have been printed and distributed, with much of the cost covered by Koehler personally. The sign has also been downloaded thousands of times from the Internet.
Koehler, a registered Republican, said that he felt the legislation is at odds with mainstream values in Phoenix, which he described as diverse and accepting of its LGBT population.
“Legislation like this, whether or not it is intended this way or not, hurts the LGBT community,” Koehler said. “One small section of the state that supposedly represents us is putting something out there that obviously the population at large is against.
“We represent a very diverse city, and we as a downtown business community have embraced that diversity,” Lanning said. “We’re leery of things that not only encourage and protect discrimination but that cause us nationally to be perceived as an intolerant or even hateful community.”
Joe La Rue, a legal counsel for the Scottsdale-based Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that the bill is not about discrimination. ADF is a conservative Christian nonprofit organization that provides legal defense that in their own words keeps “the door open for the spread of the Gospel by transforming the legal system and advocating for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.”
La Rue said that the bill would allow, for example, a baker to refuse to bake a cake with the phrase “God Hates Fags” for the Westboro Baptist Church, or a black photographer to refuse to shoot a documentary for the racist Aryan Nations church.
“If they have signs up, that’s their right, and I support that right,” La Rue said. “The issue isn’t about who we serve, the issue is about (whether the government can) make us engage in speech or make us do things that violate our faith.”
Bodega 420 is one of many stores on Fifth Street bearing the sign. The grocery’s owner Adrian Fontes said that he strongly opposes the bill.
“From a personal perspective, I think the people who are sponsoring (the bill) are just idiots. Just flat out idiots,” Fontes said.
Juan Chavez from Glendale and Ghena Grinshpun, a medical doctor visiting from Florida working for the U.S. military, were shopping on Fifth Street and commented on the signs they saw in businesses around the street.
“It makes me feel at ease that I can walk into any store and shop,” Chavez said.
Grinshpun said that while he enjoys visiting Arizona and feels that it is LGBT-friendly, the law made him feel uncomfortable as a tourist.
“Phoenix is a very progressive place, and that’s why I love coming here,” Grinshpun said. “That’s what I love about this country. It’s freedom, you can love what you want and you can be who you are. But I don’t want to be here visiting as a homosexual hearing about laws like this.”
Professor Lee McPheters, director of the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center at the W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU, said the bill has damaged Arizona’s image in the national media. The state’s damaged reputation would likely be a greater threat to economic growth than the quantifiable effect of the bill itself should it pass.
“When you look at it as an economist, the costs of this in terms of brand image are certainly not going to be worth whatever the individual benefits are,” McPheters said. “Phoenix has always been one of the top metropolitan areas for growth. But that growth depends on people seeing Phoenix as presenting opportunities, and any hint of the state or metro areas being out of step with broader national values can have an effect on long-term growth.”
Adam Chodorow, a professor at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law who specializes in regulatory law, said that the bill could open up business owners to discrimination from other businesses.
“When you enter the public sphere, when you open up a store, you have to take whoever comes through the door,” Chodorow said. “Once you enter the commercial sphere, your ability to let your religious beliefs guide your behavior runs up against civil liberties.”
On Tuesday, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton brought forth a vote at a City Council meeting to ask the Council to urge Brewer to veto the bill. The Council voted in favor of Stanton’s proposal 8-1 with only Councilman Sal DiCiccio voting against. The proposed law comes after an ordinance the city passed in March of last year that would make it illegal to deny someone employment, housing or accommodations based on sexual orientation.
On the ASU Downtown campus, Undergraduate Student Government met Monday to adopt a resolution to formally oppose SB 1062, which states that USGD “will not associate with any business that acts or refuses to act with the motivation of religious belief.”
“I see it as a big issue because ASU stands as such a culturally diverse campus being the largest not only in the nation but we have so many international students from so many different backgrounds,” Cronkite Sen. Alexis Kramer said.
Members of USGD intend to pass the resolution at the regular meeting on Friday.
Contact the reporter at bkutzler@asu.edu
