The Christian conservative group behind
Arizona's controversial bill has rejected the charge that the bill
would legalize discrimination against gays.
The measure, which
states that individuals and businesses can refuse service based on
their religious beliefs, created an uproar over the weekend
after it cleared the House and Senate late last week. Republican
Governor Jan Brewer has yet to say whether she'll sign the bill but
did call it “controversial.”
Opponents have called the measure a
license for individuals and businesses to discriminate on the basis
of sexual orientation.
(Related: Senators
John McCain, Jeff Flake hope Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoes anti-gay
bill.)
Kellie Fiedorek, a lawyer with Alliance
Defending Freedom, defended the bill during an appearance on CNN,
saying that it was incorrect to compare a photographer who refuses to
serve a gay couple and a restaurateur or hotelier.
“It's not discrimination,” Fiedorek
told News Room's Brooke Baldwin and guest legal analyst
Jeffrey Toobin. “There's a big difference between taking a picture
and forcing, the government forcing, someone, a citizen, to violate
their sincerely-held beliefs by participating and using their
creative expression to photograph a wedding. We would never ask a
homosexual, we would defend a homosexual's right not to photograph an
event with the Westboro Baptist's hateful stance. We would never
want them to be involved in that.”
“This is about the law making sure
that people have the right to draw distinctions, to discriminate
among their customers based on who's gay and who's straight,”
Toobin said.
“That's just not true,” Fiedorek
insisted. “It basically says that the government cannot come in
and force you to speak or believe something that is contrary to what
you believe. It's not a license for discrimination. … This has
nothing to do with discrimination.” (The video is embedded on this
page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)