Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed House Bill 2153/Senate Bill 1062. The controversial bill would have protected all individuals, businesses, and religious institutions from discrimination lawsuits if they could show that their discriminatory actions were motivated by religious convictions. Written by the conservative advocacy group, Center for Arizona Policy and the Christian legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, the bill would have enabled businesses potentially to discriminate against virtually anyone under the guise of religious freedom. The bill, vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer, has been described by opponents as discriminatory against gays and lesbians. It would have led to marginalization and oppression of many groups and had the smell of the Nazi’s Nuremburg Laws about it.
This law would have brought Arizona back into the lead in the race with Kentucky and Kansas to return to the Dark Ages. Arizona first gained the lead in 1997, when Arizona enacted a tuition tax credit law. The available evidence shows that the law is a model for seriously undermining public education, particularly the public schools that serve poor children. Arizona scheme has cost state education hundreds of millions of dollars, money that has gone largely to subsidize education for middle- and upper-income families, both in private and public schools.
The losers are low-income families who pay fewer taxes but do not benefit from the tax credit. Money needed for public schools is diverted to private schools, depleting state funds from needed improvements to public schools that serve low-income and disadvantaged students. The law has loopholes allowing one family to pay over one thousand dollars for another family child’s tuition in return for that family paying the tuition for the first family’s child. There is no accountability in the system, designed chiefly to benefit religious schools. Public schools, you see, teach evil things like science and evolution and do not allow sufficient time for prayer.
The following essay from 2011 contained my idea for benefiting from Arizona’s religiosity.
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