The Aftermath Of Arizona's Bill

With Gov. Brewer vetoing the "religious freedoms" bill, Republicans are walking away from the doomed strategy to try to enshrine legalized discrimination into law.  The Arizona disaster has now led Ohio lawmakers to pull a similar bill introduced earlier this year.

One of the sponsors of the religious freedom bill being considered in the Ohio legislature, Democratic Representative Bill Patmon, says the plan is dead.

“We are pulling the entire bill — not just support or anything, but the bill is being pulled off the legislative agenda by my request,” Patmon said.

“There is too much misunderstanding and misinterpretation in this particular case and when you find that, then you have to maybe go back to the drawing board…”

Patmon says he was pushing the bill because he wanted to make sure there were protections for people who wear a cross necklace, a yarmulke or some other religious symbol in their workplaces.

But critics of this bill said it could open the door to widespread discrimination of gay Ohioans. Patmon says the language in this bill was not clear enough.

“There are different interpretations of it. That’s a concern for me. I don’t want different interpretations whether it is the ACLU or someone else. There should be only one. And that is to make sure people have religious freedom,” Patmon added.

Bill Patmon may have believed the bill was about religious freedom, but it's not.  It's about weakening civil rights legislation, period.  And the bill apparently was so bad that Ohio Republicans, which last year enacted some of the worst anti-choice regulations in the country and may leave the greater Cincinnati area's 2.2 million people without a single legal abortion provider by October, have scrapped the bill entirely.  Even they won't touch it now after what happened in Arizona.

Think about that for a sec.