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Gay Tolerance Is Again a Wedge Issue—This Time Against Republicans

BORIS HORVAT/AFP/Getty Images

A long, long time ago, in a culture that seems ever farther away, an incumbent Republican president picked up crucial turnout of the conservative base in several battleground states—11 states overall—via ballot initiatives to ban same-sex marriages. All the initiatives passed. They were seen as a boon to him as he secured a narrow victory over the Democratic challenger, who himself didn’t even favor same-sex marriage.

It’s really very strange that that wasn’t even ten years ago.

Now, in 2014, reports Politico, the reaction to an Arizona bill that would allow businesses to refuse to serve gay people is this: “top national Republicans just want the issue to go away.” If Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer doesn’t veto the bill, the consensus is that the issue will weigh down Republicans throughout the country who would have to answer for why their party is associated with such an obviously distasteful law.

Brewer has said she will “do the right thing for Arizona” (home, incidentally, to the first openly bisexual member of Congress). If it helps, the National Football League has made noises about moving next year’s Super Bowl, currently slated for Glendale, if the law is passed.

However, maybe the governor should think beyond her state. Jan Brewer, please veto this horrifically anti-gay bill—for the good of the entire Republican Party!