Arizona Governor Vetoes Anti-Gay Bill

Thank goodness: Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed anti-gay bill SB 1062 in an official statement late Wednesday afternoon. Brewer has been at the center of a recent firestorm over SB 1062, which would have allowed businesses to refuse service to LGBT customers on religious grounds. The governor had spent the day in meetings debating the bill.

"Senate Bill 1062 does not address a specific or present concern related to religious liberty in Arizona,” Brewer told press. “I have vetoed Senate Bill 1062 moments ago.”

While conservatives like state senators John McCain and Jeff Flake had called on Brewer to sign the bill into law, many had urged her to veto SB 1062: state businesses, politicians and public figures nationwide, and the NFL, to name a few. Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry had said he "cannot imagine" an explicitly anti-gay law like this bill would become law. “Let’s see whether the governor vetoes it," he told NBC. "I am counting on the governor.”

Brewer had five days to sign the bill, veto it, or ignore it. If she had ignored it or signed it, then the bill would have become law by this weekend.

As Bustle reported earlier Wednesday:

The law, SB1062 appears to be a lose-lose scenario: Not only would the state face boycotts that would severely hurt its economy, but it would also, of course, discriminate against a population in the state that already is behind the times, denying gay marriage rights to homosexuals in Arizona.

Though Brewer leans conservative, she has, in the past, vetoed similar bills, despite her vague statements about what she’ll do with SB1062:

"I am a woman, and I don’t rely a whole lot on my gut. I have to look at what it says and what the law says, and take that information and do the right thing. But I can assure you, as always, I will do the right thing for the state of Arizona."

Brewer certainly did the right thing, but we still can't believe a bill like SB 1062 got so close to becoming law.