Thursday, April 2, 2015

The Daily Beast: A Gay Woman Fights Back in Arkansas

By Monica Potts, Apr. 2, 2015, The Daily Beast

It wasn’t just Wal-Mart; thousands of regular Arkansans signed anti-RFRA petitions. All is not lost, even in the Ozarks.

It’s easy, from a distance, to think that Arkansas is awash with backward, homophobic yokels when its legislature passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which would allow businesses to discriminate against gay couples getting married. Governor Asa Hutchinson has sent it back to the legislature for rewording. Part of the reason is undoubtedly that Wal-Mart and other big corporations had asked him to veto it. They were worried about their bottom lines after watching many other businesses, and at least one state, pledge to boycott Indiana when the Hoosier State’s own version passed a few days earlier.

But there were plenty of people who call Arkansas home and didn’t like the law either—and like the Southerners who opposed joining the Confederacy, it’s important that history doesn’t forget them. In the past few days, my Facebook timeline has been awash with shares from people—voters, taxpayers, and proud Arkansans—who want the governor to veto the law, and there have been public statements from religious leaders and other state organizations expressing their disproval.


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