THERE is a counter to every reformation, a backlash to every revolution, a yin to every yang. So it is no surprise that as gay rights march through the land, with same-sex nuptials now legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia, and the Defence of Marriage Act defanged, that opponents of homosexuality are pushing back. Their fight to straighten America’s spine from its perceived slouch toward Gomorrah carries a whiff of desperation. Bills to permit private parties to refuse to do business with gays and lesbians have faltered in Kansas, Idaho, Tennessee, South Dakota and Maine. But last week in Arizona, the state legislature approved a bill, SB 1062, redefining religious freedom to permit businesses to discriminate against gay clients. No “individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, religious assembly or institution or other business organization”, the legislation provides, can be sued for declining to bake a wedding cake or professionally photograph a same-sex couple if a “sincerely held” religious belief deters them. Jan Brewer, Arizona's governor, must decide whether sign or veto the bill by March 1st. This is, in some ways, a curious turn. In the run-up to last year’s two Supreme Court cases involving gay marriage, and in this year’s battle in Utah, opponents of same-sex unions played down the religious side of the argument. In an amicus brief to the 10th-circuit federal court, the Church of Latter Day Saints wrote that it wants to keep marriage exclusively heterosexual “because we believe it is right and good for children, families, and society”—not only because Mormonism says so. “[R]eason, long experience, and social fact” play at least as important a role as religious faith in the case against opening marriage to gays and lesbians.

But when it comes to building an argument for why no one should have to top a wedding cake with two wee grooms, data purporting to demonstrate the social evils of gay parenting are nowhere to be found. Religion is front and centre. Listen to Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a group supporting the bill:

Our elected leaders have a fundamental duty to protect the religious freedom of every Arizonan, and that’s what SB 1062 is all about. Simply put, the fear-mongering from opponents is unrelated to the language of the bill, and proves that hostility towards people of faith is very real. It’s a shame we even need a bill like this in America. But growing hostility against freedom in our nation, and the increasing use of government to threaten and punish its own citizens, has made it necessary.

Ms Herrod gets one thing roughly right here. Go and read SB 1062 and you will find no reference to “gays” or “lesbians” or “same-sex marriage.” The text makes no mention of homosexuality. And unlike the bill that sailed through the Kansas House but seems dead on arrival in the Senate, the Arizona legislation includes no explicit language protecting individuals who refuse to recognise or solemnise weddings. SB 1062 reaches well beyond opposition to same-sex marriage by extending a blanket privilege on people with sincerely held beliefs: if it would violate your conscience to do business with pretty much anyone, you are under no obligation to consort with them. This is, in effect, an exemption from anti-discrimination laws for the pious. Under current law, a Catholic parish is under no obligation to give fair consideration to Muslim and Eastern Orthodox candidates when hiring a priest; it can summarily reject non-Catholics. But “an electrician can’t discriminate in hiring a worker,” notes Kaimipono Wenger, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Rewrite the legal regime to include SB 1062, however, and “religious individuals, and their businesses, [could] claim the right to be treated like religious institutions.” The bill “would effectively turn everyone into potential one-person mini-churches.”

That is a prospect much more worrisome than the bill’s opponents seem to fathom. Yes, SB 1062 gives businesses license to walk away from jobs with gay clients. But it also empowers any individual or entity to discriminate against people they find religiously unpalatable. Do you believe that physically unattractive people are marked as such by a disapproving deity? You needn’t hire them to work in your mail room. Are video games unholy pastimes of the Devil, in your sincere estimation? Ask people applying to wait tables in your restaurant if they play Minecraft and dismiss them if they do. If Governor Brewer decides to sign into law this radical expansion of Arizona's religious-freedom regime—something both Republican senators from the state are urging her not to do, along with three of the state senators who voted for the bill but have since changed their minds—every Arizonan will be a potential fount of religiously inspired discrimination.

Read more: Good news for marriage equality in Virginia

