{"id":183034,"date":"2015-04-01T20:18:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T01:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/04\/01\/the-governor-of-the-state-of-walmart-vetoes-pro-bigotry-bill\/"},"modified":"2015-04-01T20:18:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T01:18:00","slug":"the-governor-of-the-state-of-walmart-vetoes-pro-bigotry-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/04\/01\/the-governor-of-the-state-of-walmart-vetoes-pro-bigotry-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"The Governor of the State of Walmart Vetoes Pro Bigotry Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am, of course, referring to the decision of the Governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchison, to veto their (almost the same as Indiana’s) so called religious freedom bill<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Facing a backlash from businesses and gay rights advocates, Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas on Wednesday called on state lawmakers to either recall or amend legislation billed as a religious freedom measure so that it mirrored a federal law approved in 1993.<\/span>

<\/span> Mr. Hutchinson, a Republican, said he understood the divide in Arkansas and across the nation over the question of same-sex marriage<\/a> and its impact on people\u2019s religious beliefs. His own son, Seth, he said, had asked him to veto the bill, which critics say could allow individuals and businesses to discriminate against gay men and lesbians.<\/span>

<\/span> To ensure that the state is \u201ca place of tolerance,\u201d Mr. Hutchinson said, he was considering using an executive order that would seek to balance the \u201ccompeting constitutional obligations\u201d if the legislature declined to make changes to the bill.<\/span>

<\/span> \u201cWhat is important from an Arkansas standpoint is one, we get the right balance,\u201d he said, \u201cand secondly, we make sure that we communicate we\u2019re not going to be a state that fails to recognize the diversity of our workplace, our economy and our future.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> \u201cThis is a bill that in ordinary times would not be controversial,\u201d Mr. Hutchinson said. \u201cBut these are not ordinary times.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> Two state legislative leaders \u2014 Senator Jonathan Dismang, president pro tem of the Senate, and Jeremy Gillam, speaker of the House \u2014 who appeared with Mr. Hutchinson at a news conference Wednesday, said they agreed that the bill should be changed, but that they could not guarantee that outcome.<\/span>

<\/span> The legislation, which easily cleared the state House by lopsided margins, has created a political rift in the state, with Mark Stodola, the mayor of Little Rock, sending a letter to Mr. Hutchinson this week urging him to veto the bill, saying it would have \u201ca negative impact on our state\u2019s image.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> Several businesses and tech companies, including the state\u2019s largest private employer, Walmart<\/span><\/b>, as well as the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, the Arkansas Municipal League and other civic groups have spoken out against the legislation.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(emphasis mine<\/i>)<\/p>\n

It’s clear that the backlash in Indiana is a major factor, but I think that it was the objections by Walmart that was the main reason for this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am, of course, referring to the decision of the Governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchison, to veto their (almost the same as Indiana’s) so called religious freedom bill: Facing a backlash from businesses and gay rights advocates, Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas on Wednesday called on state lawmakers to either recall or amend legislation billed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[971,1020,1030,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-rights","category-legislation","category-lgbtq","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}