Basically, they’re still for it, but the backlash is painful, so they’re against it. But it’s still a good idea. That maybe isn’t absolutely necessary. But a good thing, just don’t do it because there might be some bad results that would hurt us instead of the people we’re trying to hurt.

Three Republican senators who voted for Senate Bill 1062 say they made a bad decision in a rushed process and are now asking Gov. Jan Brewer to veto the right to refuse service bill.

“We feel it was a solution in search of a problem,” Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, said in an impromptu news conference outside the state Senate. He was joined by Sen. Steve Pierce, R-Prescott.

The two, along with Senate Majority Whip Adam Driggs, R-Phoenix, sent Brewer a letter this morning asking for a veto.

“While our sincere intent in voting for this bill was to create a shield for all citizens’ religious liberties, the bill has instead been mischaracterized by its opponents as a sword for religious intolerance,” the three wrote. “These allegations are causing our state immeasurable harm.”

Pierce and Worsley said the bill was moved along very quickly, not giving them enough time to convince fellow lawmakers to vote against it. Besides, Pierce said, they didn’t want to “tear apart” the GOP caucus, which was sharply divided last year over Brewer’s push for Medicaid expansion. [Emphasis added out of pure Schadenfreude.—ed.]

[…]

Read the rest here (there’s an auto-starting video too): 3 GOP Senators Who Voted for SB 1062 Asking Brewer to Veto Bill

Here’s a link to a .pdf of the letter signed by the three Republican Senators. I think the letter is actually more weaselly than the video statement at the link above.

Thanks again to Stanley Sea for the subtitle.

By the way, here’s an amusing article about the fight against the bill in the Arizona Senate, carried out by two Democratic Senators, Steve Gallardo and Ed Ableser.

[…]

First, Gallardo offered adding specific LGBT protections to the bill. That was voted down.

Then, Gallardo offered that any business that does want to reserve service to someone based on a religious belief should let that be known on a sign posted at the front of the business.

“There’s a reason why businesses don’t want anyone to know [they discriminate], it’s because they will go out of business — they know that,” Gallardo said. “They know that this type of discrimination would not be tolerated in Arizona.”

That was voted down.

Then Ableser introduced his series of amendments.

[…]

Read it all.

Arizona Chamber of Commerce, Sane Republicans, Run Screaming from SB 1062 http://t.co/rQeXHZ9O1E

— Stephen Lemons (@stephenlemons) February 24, 2014