Arizona SB 1062

Arizona SB 1062 was an Arizona bill to amend an existing law to give any individual or legal entity an exemption from any state law if it substantially burdened their exercise of religion, including Arizona law requiring public accommodation.

It was one of several similar bills in U.S. state legislatures allowing individuals to refuse service based on religion, with some bills specifically protecting religious disapproval of same-sex marriage. It was widely reported as targeting LGBT people, although Arizona law provides no protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Critics noted that it would have broadly denied anyone service on religious grounds. Supporters argued that it was simply restoring the legal status of the right to free exercise of religion as intended by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The bill was passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and vetoed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer on February 26, 2014.

The national controversy surrounding the bill prompted Arizona State Senator Steve Gallardo to publicly come out as gay. He referred to the bill as a "game changer," and noted the national controversy surrounding its passage, as prompting his decision.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in Employment Division v. Smith (1990) that a person may not defy neutral laws of general applicability, such as public accommodation laws, as an expression of religious belief. "To permit this," wrote Justice Scalia, "would make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself." He wrote that neutral laws of general applicability do not have to meet the standard of strict scrutiny, because such a requirement would create "a private right to ignore generally applicable laws". Strict scrutiny would require a law to be the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling government interest. The meaning of neutral law of general applicability was elaborated by the court in 1993. The US Congress responded by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), requiring strict scrutiny when a neutral law of general applicability "substantially burden[s] a person’s exercise of religion". When the Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the RFRA was inapplicable to state laws, some states passed their own Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, including the Arizona law that SB 1062 proposed to amend. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the federal RFRA as applied to federal statutes in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal in 2006.

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