# News anchor wonders what all the fuss is with the anti-gay Arizona bill - Weary commentator explains
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-anchor-wonders-what-all-the-fuss-is-with-the-anti-gay-arizona-bill-weary-commentator-explains/682789
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 4, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-anchor-wonders-what-all-the-fuss-is-with-the-anti-gay-arizona-bill-weary-commentator-explains/682789 "2014-03-04T00:36:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-anchor-wonders-what-all-the-fuss-is-with-the-anti-gay-arizona-bill-weary-commentator-explains/682789/21 "2014-03-06T10:41:17Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> I think people have a hard time with this because they can’t imagine that there wouldn’t be an alternative. If the Muslim shopkeeper doesn’t want to serve the pretty lady, why, the pretty lady can just go to the shop next door and be all the more better for it! Because FREE MARKET.
>
> But minorities can’t always count on alternatives being there for them. If everyone in the freakin’ town has the same religious conviction and/or if all the alternatives are craptacular, _then_ what? Pick up and move? That’s great if you’ve got money. But it sucks for the decent, non-discriminatory tax-payers in the community who paid for your education all those years. They lose out on a good real estate agent, shoe salesman, dog-walker, or preschool teacher just because the merchant class is bigoted.
> [@Leaper](#):
>
> And when you try to explain that, you get a roll-eyes and a contemptuous “oh, come on, stop exaggerating, that would never happen.”
>
> That’s the standard libertarian solution for 90% of problems.
I don’t know, I feel like there’s a certain “SOL threshold” when you talk about scenarios like that. When it comes down to it, if you’re in some tiny rural town that’s all against you, you’re just fucked. Sure, the law “protects” you, but if the entire town is against you, they may just disregard it. Even if you successfully sue them, or they’re swayed by threatening to sue, they’re going to make things laboriously difficult for you in the most passive aggressive non-provable ways. (Or in ways that would be so tedious to document only hardcore activists who were already planning to sue would even bother)
I think if you’re really in that small town Monstro mentions, the only real solution is to “just move”. No amount of lawsuits will make that pleasant to live in. No matter how much I try I am not going to get anything done in a town that’s 99% fundamentalist Mormons, and no black couple is going to get along in a town founded by KKK members, and no homosexual couple is going to make living in some completely homophobic town.
I’m not saying protecting homosexuals as a class is bad. It’s not, and I support any legislation or amendments that aim to ensure as much as possible they’re treated equally. But I don’t think “What about Podunk, USA, where everyone is a racist homophobe?” is a good argument, because even with the law on your side you’d still need to be able to move mountains to actually get them to cooperate. It’s not like you can prove your waitress **intentionally** forgot about you for 45 minutes.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-anchor-wonders-what-all-the-fuss-is-with-the-anti-gay-arizona-bill-weary-commentator-explains/682789/22 "2014-03-06T11:48:47Z")
> [@Jragon](#):
>
> I think if you’re really in that small town Monstro mentions, the only real solution is to “just move”. No amount of lawsuits will make that pleasant to live in. No matter how much I try I am not going to get anything done in a town that’s 99% fundamentalist Mormons, and no black couple is going to get along in a town founded by KKK members, and no homosexual couple is going to make living in some completely homophobic town.
But “just move” isn’t possible for everybody; what if you realized you were a lesbian after you were already married with kids? Moving away from your children’s father is not all that easy and impinges upon custody arrangements. And what happens when it’s not the town, it’s the whole country? For many people, it’s the whole country.
[What would you do?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ3b3JzctWE)
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### Author:  [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-anchor-wonders-what-all-the-fuss-is-with-the-anti-gay-arizona-bill-weary-commentator-explains/682789/23 "2014-03-06T12:15:44Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> But “just move” isn’t possible for everybody; what if you realized you were a lesbian after you were already married with kids? Moving away from your children’s father is not all that easy and impinges upon custody arrangements. And what happens when it’s not the town, it’s the whole country? For many people, it’s the whole country.
>
> [What would you do?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ3b3JzctWE)
Right, and I accept it may not be possible, but I still don’t think it will do much in Smalltown, VA. Not for years. It will do good in larger towns where there was already pressure from both sides and now non-discrimination is the path of least resistance, but if everyone is united against you already and there is no local “other faction” I’m not confident it will help.
I’m not saying that’s right or just, and I’m not saying the person SHOULD just move, or it’s their fault if they don’t move. I’m saying I’m skeptical it will really change anything in the places that are already practically unlivable in for these classes. It will help indirectly in that it promotes a cultural shift that may trickle down into those towns in years or decades, but I don’t think it will help SOL gay people in those towns in the short term.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-anchor-wonders-what-all-the-fuss-is-with-the-anti-gay-arizona-bill-weary-commentator-explains/682789/24 "2014-03-06T13:06:06Z")
**Jragon** , the “just move” solution is absolutely one that a lot of minorities have taken over the years, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with any person who solves their problems with bigotry that way.
But they’re not the ones who change things. The ones who change things are the ones who stay and struggle, the ones who are in the most bigoted communities and say, “That’s not right.”
Friend of mine runs the Campaign for Southern Equality, and this is something she runs into on a regular basis: people think it’s foolish to be fighting for gay rights in the most homophobic states in the country. She responds by saying, in effect, if you’re not going to fight bigotry where bigotry lives, where would you fight it?
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### Author:  [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-anchor-wonders-what-all-the-fuss-is-with-the-anti-gay-arizona-bill-weary-commentator-explains/682789/25 "2014-03-06T13:24:43Z")
I didn’t mean it’s not worth it to target bigoted towns, states, or countries and try to change them. That’s absolutely necessary. I was more responding to the sentiment that **this** law (or lack of law… veto… whatever) would really do much in terms of making things better for people in those towns. Things certainly can be made better with targeted efforts, but they need to be targeted and tailored.
A blanket law is a starting place, as it gives a framework for the activists to work in. So I guess in that sense I’m wrong. I just don’t think championing this law(/veto/status quo) as something that helps people in small towns is misguided since I don’t feel it really does much. Maybe I’m just being too cynical and instead I should be happy that the precedent is now there rather than flippant about it not magically solving all discrimination and giving me a pony.
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### Author:  [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-anchor-wonders-what-all-the-fuss-is-with-the-anti-gay-arizona-bill-weary-commentator-explains/682789/26 "2014-03-06T23:16:53Z")
The look Bernie gives as screen is fading out at the very end of the clip is AWESOME.
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### Author:  [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-anchor-wonders-what-all-the-fuss-is-with-the-anti-gay-arizona-bill-weary-commentator-explains/682789/27 "2014-03-06T23:27:12Z")
> [@sinjin](#):
>
> I swear to God that Fox News is bringing blonde women to new lows. They are making Barbie look good. How is this possible?
“Civil rights is hard.”😃
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