via Democracy Now 2/27/14

In a major victory for civil rights advocates, Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer has vetoed a bill that would have allowed businesses to deny service to LGBT people in the name of religion. The bill was passed by both houses of the Arizona Legislature earlier this month and sparked outcry not only from human rights activists, but also from major corporations, and eventually even from some of the Republican lawmakers who voted for it. Delta, PetSmart, American Airlines Group, Marriott and Apple were among the many companies that urged Brewer to block the bill. The Arizona bill is similar to measures that have failed in other states. In another victory for LGBT rights advocates, on the same day as the Arizona veto, a federal judge in Texas declared that state’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. We are joined by one of the country’s most well-known champions of gay rights: the legendary actor, author and activist, George Takei, best known for playing Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek. He recently wrote a scathing essay headlined "Razing Arizona," promising to boycott Arizona if Brewer had allowed the controversial anti-gay bill to pass into law. Takei also talks about his role as World War II veteran Sam Kimura in "Allegiance: A New American Musical." The musical tells the story of a Japanese-American family who is relocated from their farm after the attack on Pearl Harbor and placed in an internment camp in Wyoming. This parallels part of Takei’s own family history. At the age of five, his family was shipped to a Japanese-American internment camp in Rohwer, Arkansas.