If the bad guys can't win in Arizona.....

Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona has vetoed SB1062, the proposed law which would have allowed businesses to discriminate against gays on religious grounds.  This was pretty much expected -- a formidable array of interests had turned against the bill, including the Arizona business community, the state's Senators (both Republicans), major national corporations, the NFL (the Superbowl is in Arizona next year), Major League Baseball, and even some of the state legislators who originally voted for the thing, though they claim they changed their minds because of it being misrepresented.  Limbaugh and others whined that the gays were "bullying" Brewer, but with so many others making the case, they hardly needed to bother.  Even the types who frequent RedState were divided (see comments).  The backlash was so fierce that Republicans in other states who had been pushing similar laws have started backing down.

This turnabout brings several observations to mind.

First, I'm once again amazed at how much public attitudes have changed in so short a time.  Don't forget that until 2003, just 11 years ago, homosexuality itself was still illegal in huge areas of the country.  Just a few years before that, except in a few cities, the gay movement was a fringe group in a society whose reactions ranged from uncomprehending disdain to mouth-foaming rants about "sin".  Now, even in a red state like Arizona, an anti-gay stance has become a massive economic liability as even large, mainstream entities like the NFL and prominent Republicans feel they have to take a public stand against it -- massive enough to sway a Governor (I assume no one thinks Brewer vetoed the bill because she's a closet liberal).  Americans now favor gay marriage 53% to 41% -- even in the South opinion is evenly divided, 48% to 48%.  20 years ago this would have been unthinkable.  If such an entrenched taboo can be so thoroughly repudiated in less than a generation, who can say what other changes in attitudes may be possible if we work for them?

(On an internet forum I read, one right-winger muttered darkly that "the pendulum always swings back".  I asked if he's still waiting for it to swing back on the issue of women having the vote.  Some changes are permanent.)

Second, the anti-gay side is still unable to coherently defend its position.  Sorry, but just calling discrimination "religious liberty" isn't an argument.  On the forum mentioned above, objections to protecting gays from discrimination were full of bad logic and failed analogies, such as "Does this mean a Muslim caterer could be forced to serve pork?"  (No, if they don't normally serve pork to anyone, it's not discrimination if they won't serve pork to you.  If they're asked to provide their normal catering services at a Jewish event, and they refuse because they don't like Jews, that is illegal discrimination.  The latter case, not the former, is analogous to the actual gay cases we've seen -- if wedding cakes are part of a baker's normal services, providing them to straight couples but not to gay ones is discrimination.)  I think in many cases they can't make a clear argument for their position because they can't be honest, even with themselves, about the motives for that position -- see this excellent post on the psychology of discrimination.

Third, there is a deeper level on which the fundies are losing just by waging this fight the way they're waging it, even if they seem to be winning a battle here and there.  What the public sees is that the fundies' great cause, the hill they're willing to die on, is their "liberty" to exclude and discriminate and reject -- that the desperately-important right they're fighting for is the right to push certain other people away and brand them unclean and inferior.  Even if you score a win for that right occasionally, you're still losing by presenting such an image of yourself.  This is a major factor driving the young away from religion, and turning the cultural mainstream against the Christian Right.

If they can't win a fight like this in Arizona, where in the country can they win it?  It used to be that the religious taboo on homosexuality made homosexuality socially unacceptable.  We're rapidly moving toward a society where that same taboo is, instead, making religious fundamentalism socially unacceptable.