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Arizona SB 1062 was an Arizona bill to amend an existing law to give any individual or legal entity an exemption from any state law if it substantially burdened their exercise of religion, including Arizona law requiring public accommodation. It was one of several similar bills in U.S. state legislatures allowing individuals to refuse service based on religion, with some bills specifically protecting religious disapproval of same-sex marriage. It was widely reported as targeting LGBT people, although Arizona law provides no protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=https://www.azag.gov/discrimination/public-accommodation-discrimination )〕 Critics noted that it would have broadly denied anyone service on religious grounds. Supporters argued that it was simply restoring the legal status of the right to free exercise of religion as intended by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.azpolicy.org/bill-tracker/religious-freedom-restoration-act-sb-1062 )〕 The bill was passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and vetoed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer on February 26, 2014. The national controversy surrounding the bill prompted Arizona Senator Steve Gallardo to publicly come out as gay.〔(Arizona's Anti-Gay Bill Inspired This State Lawmaker To Come Out )〕 He referred to the bill as a "game changer," and noted the national controversy surrounding its passage, as prompting his decision. ==Background== The United States Supreme Court ruled in ''Employment Division v. Smith'' (1990) that a person may not defy ''neutral laws of general applicability,'' such as public accommodation laws, as an expression of religious belief. "To permit this," wrote Justice Scalia, "would make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself." He wrote that neutral laws of general applicability do not have to meet the standard of strict scrutiny, because such a requirement would create "a private right to ignore generally applicable laws". Strict scrutiny would require a law to be the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling government interest. The meaning of ''neutral law of general applicability'' was elaborated by the court in 1993. The US Congress responded by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), requiring strict scrutiny when a neutral law of general applicability "substantially burden() a person’s exercise of religion". When the Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the RFRA was inapplicable to state laws,〔 some states passed their own Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, including the Arizona law that SB 1062 proposed to amend. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the federal RFRA as applied to federal statutes in ''Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal'' in 2006. Arizona lawmakers were concerned about a 2013 New Mexico Supreme Court ruling that weakened its state's RFRA,〔 which was passed as a religious exemption to its own public accommodation law prohibiting the denial of services based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Twenty-one states, not including Arizona, have similar public accommodation laws protecting sexual orientation.〔 The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in ''Elane Photography v. Willock'' that the state's RFRA could not be invoked between two parties if the government was not a party to the legal proceedings.〔 The bill was introduced by Senator Steve Yarbrough to amend a law currently giving religious assemblies or institutions a religious exemption from any law. The bill was passed by the Republican-controlled Senate on February 19, along party lines and passed by the state House on February 20.〔〔 The vote tally in the Senate was 17 for, 13 against, and in the House, 33 for, 27 against. On February 26, Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the bill after significant national attention.〔 There are not enough votes in the legislature to override the veto. Following the veto, Senator Steve Gallardo, one of the bill's most stringent opponents, came out as gay. He identified the day that the bill passed the Senate as a "game changer".〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arizona SB 1062」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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