Group Behind Arizona Bill Insists It's 'Not About Discrimination'

The Christian conservative group behind Arizona's controversial bill has rejected the charge that the bill would legalize discrimination against gays.

The measure, which states that individuals and businesses can refuse service based on their religious beliefs, created an uproar over the weekend after it cleared the House and Senate late last week. Republican Governor Jan Brewer has yet to say whether she'll sign the bill but did call it “controversial.”

Opponents have called the measure a license for individuals and businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Kellie Fiedorek, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, defended the bill during an appearance on CNN, saying that it was incorrect to compare a photographer who refuses to serve a gay couple and a restaurateur or hotelier.

“It's not discrimination,” Fiedorek told News Room's Brooke Baldwin and guest legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. “There's a big difference between taking a picture and forcing, the government forcing, someone, a citizen, to violate their sincerely-held beliefs by participating and using their creative expression to photograph a wedding. We would never ask a homosexual, we would defend a homosexual's right not to photograph an event with the Westboro Baptist's hateful stance. We would never want them to be involved in that.”

“This is about the law making sure that people have the right to draw distinctions, to discriminate among their customers based on who's gay and who's straight,” Toobin said.

“That's just not true,” Fiedorek insisted. “It basically says that the government cannot come in and force you to speak or believe something that is contrary to what you believe. It's not a license for discrimination. … This has nothing to do with discrimination."

I wouldn't play this game with them, the question begged asking: "If that isn't the definition of discrimination, then exactly what is?"

This law goes way beyond what they are espousing, it potentially can deny gays the necessities of life and can potentially cause them physical harm with the denial of goods and services like food, lodging and civil services.