Earlier this year the political pundits were all patting themselves on the back because the Tea-Publican Arizona legislature had not reintroduced the so-called “religious liberty” (license to discriminate) bill, SB 1062, that Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed last year after a firestorm of bad national publicity for Arizona. I warned you at the time not to read too much into this, Cathi Herrod is just biding her time.
I am right, of course. In the Arizona Republic today, Indiana uproar echoes SB 1062 furor in Ariz.:
Arizona’s SB 1062 sought to amend the state’s RFRA to provide a legal defense for individuals and businesses facing discrimination lawsuits if they proved they acted upon a “sincerely held religious belief.”
Cathi Herrod, president of the socially conservative Center for Arizona Policy, was the driving force behind SB 1062. On Friday, the center issued a statement praising Pence and Indiana.
In an interview Monday with The Arizona Republic, Herrod noted that Indiana’s new law also was informed by the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores, which clarified RFRA can apply to closely held businesses. That case involved an objection to federally mandated birth-control coverage.
Indiana’s law is “not word for word, but it’s very similar to the Arizona law that we have as well as incorporating some of the changes that we were trying to make” [with SB 1062], Herrod said.
