![\"TakeiAntiGayBillResp022414\"](\"http:\/\/www.trektoday.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/TakeiAntiGayBillResp022414.jpg\")
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Star Trek<\/em>‘s George Takei<\/strong> is not happy with the new controversial anti-gay bill recently passed in Arizona.<\/p>\n The bill, which would need to be signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer<\/strong> to take effect, would permit business owners to deny service to gays on religious grounds.<\/p>\n “Congratulations,” said Takei. “You are now the first state actually to pass a bill permitting businesses\u2013even those open to the public\u2013to refuse to provide service to LGBT people based on an individual’s ‘\u201csincerely held religious belief.’ This ‘turn away the gay’ bill enshrines discrimination into the law. Your taxi drivers can refuse to carry us. Your hotels can refuse to house us. And your restaurants can refuse to serve us.”<\/p>\n Takei likened the law to ones in force during the time of Jim Crow. “You say this bill protects ‘religious freedom,’ but no one is fooled,” he said. “When I was younger, people used ‘God\u2019s Will’ as a reason to keep the races separate, too. Make no mistake, this is the new segregation, yours is a Jim Crow law, and you are about to make yourself ground zero.”<\/p>\n If Arizona does indeed make the anti-gay bill law, expect a backlash, says Takei. “If your Governor Jan Brewer signs this repugnant bill into law, make no mistake. We will not come,” he said. “We will not spend. And we will urge everyone we know\u2013from large corporations to small families on vacation\u2013to boycott. Because you don’t deserve our dollars. Not one red cent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Star Trek‘s George Takei is not happy with the new controversial anti-gay bill recently passed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2413],"tags":[6941,6944,6938,6947,2415],"class_list":["post-32600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cast-crew","tag-arizona","tag-bill","tag-gay-rights","tag-law","tag-takei"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","newsphere-slider-full":"","newsphere-featured":"","newsphere-medium":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"T'Bonz","author_link":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/author\/tbonz\/"},"category_info":"Cast & Crew<\/a>","tag_info":"Cast & Crew","comment_count":"64","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32606,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32600\/revisions\/32606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trektoday.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}