After the murder they were both convicted of raising eyebrows tonight. We begin with the growing backlash to arizona sb 1062 bill. Former governor mitt romney advising against it. He tweets veto of sb 1062 are right. Hes again it so are senator john mccain and jeff flake. So do several businesses doing business in the state. With the super bowl coming to phoenix fem next year, governor brewer has the nfl to worry about. Mission guess marquez joins us with the the latest. Is there a feeling, miguel, that the business interests that seem to be like up against the bill are having a big influence . Reporter this is probably having the biggest influence on this. The governor has heard from every business group, every business in this state especially the big businesses. The biggest concern for them is that the uncertainty that this bill inserts into their workforce, saying that employees who have a deep religious belief they believe could possibly sue their own employer for offers Health Care Plans that offer things like Abortion Services or any sort of reproductive services. The Business Community really going after this thing, applying an enormous amount of pressure on the governor, anderson. Governor brewer is now back in her state. She was attending a governors conference. Any idea when shes going to make a decision . Reporter it sounds like tomorrow she will take the day to talk to legislators, business leaders, gay groups, those who are supporting sb 1062 to get the full breadth of everything thats happened while shes been gone in washington. We expect on thursday she will come up with a veto of this is everything we are hearing. She will take that opportunity in order to talk about the things that have been said about arizona during this debate nationwide. Miguel marquez, appreciate it. Ever since this erupted into a national controversy, supporters of the bill have been somewhat reluctant to come on the program to defend it. Last night though one supporter did. State senator al melvin came to the program. If somebody is fired, a boss doesnt like some guy on their staff or woman on their staff because theyre gay or hlesbian and theyre fired for that, because there is no protection for sexual discrimination is there protection . Youre trying to distort a religious freedom bill. [ overlapping speakers ] sir youre running for for governor of the state of arizona. You cant go on the record and say that would be discrimination . I dont know of any case like you just cited. I want to give you one more opportunity. I think this is going to come back on you. If somebody anywhere in america is fired because theyre gay or lesbian and thats the reason theyre fired, just because somebody doesnt like them and its legal in that state, is that discrimination . Im against all discrimination, and i want maximum religious freedom, sir. Okay. You cant answer that question, then. I gave you the opportunity. Thats my answer to you. His response wasnt really an answer. Hes always welcome back on the program. However his colleagues have been somewhat more reluctant. We sent 360s randi kaye to phoenix. Randi, what have you found out there . Reporter anderson, its certainly been a challenge trying to get anybody to talk to us here at the state capitol. There has been so much backlash as you can tell here by the protesters. Nobody wants to touch this thing. But take a look at what happened today when i tried to get some lawmakers to talk to me about b 1062. No comment right now. Were waiting for the governor. We came all the way from new york to talk to you. We have great weather and spring baseball is almost here. Youre welcome to be here as long as you want. I hear youre the man who gives great quotes. Were going to caucus, too. No. Hold on. Give me 30 seconds. My 1 00 is here. Im very very late. 30 seconds. Just tell me why you please, sir. Ill catch you on my way out. Can i ask you why you support it . No thanks. What do you make of all the attention its getting . I think theres a lot of misunderstanding. Do you want to explain, set the record straight . I dont. Thank you for offering. You have nothing to say . Its interesting no one wants to talk to people who are in support. You grabbed a minute with senator Steve Yarbrough who authored the bill. What does he say . Reporter we asked him if he had any plans to try and talk with governor brewer or meet with governor brewer before she made her decision. This is what he told me. The indications that were getting is that the governor may very well veto this. Is there anything you want to say to the governor . Well, the governor i consider a dear friend of mine. I will take the opportunity to communicate with the governor when she gets home. And ill try to persuade her to sign the bill. What will you tell her . I will tell her basically what the bill does, what the bill doesnt do, and that it has been extraordinarily distorted as to the whole struggle that its been made up to be when its really not about that at all. Will i be successful . Who knows. The senator told me he doesnt expect governor brewer to wait until friday or saturday to make her decision. He thinks shes make that decision quickly after meeting with him as early as tomorrow. I want to share with you one more exchange that i had earlier today with representative sunny barelli. We finally were able to talk after he stopped speed walking. You already declined an answer and i havent even asked you a question. Can you tell me why we need sb 1062 here in arizona . It strengthens existing laws. Can you stop for one second so were not out of breath . Im very busy. Just one quick question. A straight answer on why you need it here. What does it change . You know, the sword swings both ways. Okay. What about this scenario. You have a gay person that owns a printing shop. Okay . And somebody from the west Borough Baptist Church comes in there and demands that they print something the printer doesnt agree with. Should that group, that religious group, demand that print shop print that thing . Does not the Business Owner have a right to say get out im not going to print that its offensive . And with that he hustled right back inside the back entrance of the capitol building. Anderson. Appreciate it. Thanks very much. Lets dig deeper on the legal question that the state congressman barelli raised. What about that, the congressman said west bror Borough Baptist Church goes to a gayowned business in arizona, demands that they print up some leaflets for a demonstration. Yeah. So whats interesting about that is that first of all its the gay printer whos holding himself out to the public sphere. The presumption is that he would actually have to print those leaflets. And if not because religion is a protected group there could be a reo religious claim brought against them. Gay people are not protected from any kind of discrimination by the religious print. In that analogy, the gay group is not a religious group so if this law passed they couldnt argue on religious grounds that they wouldnt print up this stuff for the west Borough Baptist Church. Exactly right. Whats really striking about this, nobody except for at the very end i thought it was really telling he used the example of gay people. Nobody is willing either tonight or in your prior interviews to say the word gay in defending bill. An entire interview they tap danced around the word gay. If you go to yarbrough, he was up front about saying the situation in new mexico where a photographer was forced to take photographs of same sex couples Commitment Ceremony or wedding. She was sued because she wouldnt in new mexico which violates the state statutes in new mexico protecting discrimination against people based on sexual orientation. But youre right. Early on a lot of lawmakers were pointing to that what happened in new mexico as the reason. You dont hear people now pointing to that anymore. Exactly. With regard to we werent on notice about this or this has been horribly distorted, the legislative hearing is online. So id really encourage people to just go to just Google Arizona legislature and then you can type in sb 1062 and then watch the proceedings. And time after tyime people are raising this will have antigay consequences. Youre saying if they listened to the proceedings they would have known. This came up over and owe again. Democratic senator after democratic senator talked about the negative effects it would have on gay and lesbians. Congressman melvin says he knows of no discrimination in the state of arizona, that a, he could come up with no specific example of discrimination against religious beliefs or religious groups this law ill designed to protect but theres no discrimination at all in the state. Lets play this. With all due respect, sir, i dont know of anybody in arizona that would discriminate against a fellow human being. No no christian or jew that i know of. Really . Discrimination doesnt exist in arizona . Well, maybe you ought to move to arizona. Were more people friendly here, apparently. Its inquestionable. No discrimination based on race, disability, gender, sexual orientation. Sounds like an incredible place. What do you make of that . Like a paradise thinly disguised. I watched that exchange. He actually invited you afterwards or in that clip as well to come take your bags and move to arizona. Look, i like arizona. Its a great state. As do i. Its a wonderful state. But i thought this is not a theoretical question, empirical question. I dug into the eoc data to see how many charges have been filed. Equal Employment Opportunity commission. Yes. Theres hard data here about 2013. In 2013 there are over 3,000 discrimination complaints filed in arizona. In just one year. Just in one year. 3,000. Yes. And in new york it was slightly higher in new york. But if you think about the fact that new york state has three times the population of arizona, 6. 5 and 19. 5 million respectively, i think you should stay here, anderson. Fascinating. Appreciate you doing the research on it. Whether its the threat of losing business for the state, condemnation of fellow republicans, sincere personal regret or all the above, as we mentioned a number of arizona lawmakers are republicans who voted for sb 1062 are now saying they wish they voted against it. Theyre going to tell the governor to vote against it. State senator steve pierce is one of them. I spoke to him earlier today. Senator, you now regret your vote for this bill. You plan to talk to governor brewer about it. Why do you regret your vote . It went through really quick. No one really had anything telling me dont do it. Several of us talked. We thought, this isnt good. Its not good for the state. But no one had said anything. And we thought well, well vote for it. Had no idea it would be a reaction like this or wed do what weve done. But we made a mistake. And the good thing about it is now we know how to fix the mistake. And thats what were trying to do. I got to say its rare for any person in public life, particularly political life, to say that they actually made a mistake and to be public about that. So i think that takes a certain amount of courage to actually come forward and say look, i made a mistake. I regret this. Its interesting your description of the process. I know one of your republican colleagues whos also against the bill says that you were uncomfortable with the bill last week. What about it made you uncomfortabl uncomfortable . You know, it was do we really need it. Youre getting into something when you get into religious freedom were getting into a pretty sticky wicket. What it would do and how it would do it could be interpresentinte could be interpreted different ways. I didnt interpret it would affect everyone like it has. We just didnt do that. And like friday morning we started seeing all the emails and everything show up on our desks and constituents calling and businesses started calling. Thats when it really went viral and took off and took a life of its own. Its too bad for arizona. I just hope the governor gets back here and she vetoes it. She said last night she was going to do the right thing. I saw. So debate that occurred when the larger body was debating this. And there were a number of Democratic Senators who were saying about the negative impact this would have on the gay community. Did you hear those arguments . What did you think of them at the time . In the debate, yes, i heard all that. In the debate you hear arguments every day about this ones wrong, that ones wrong. And i believed that kind of fed into my position. That now when i look back on it, they were right in what they were saying. I have friends in the Democratic Caucus that were warning me. But that was only the Democratic Caucus was saying something. No one came to me beforehand. So you actually believe, looking at it now, thought would discriminate against some people in arizona. It has that ability, yes, it could be. Ive talked with a lot of people about it and theyre going, well, what about going in the restaurant, what about doing this. Well, the way it was described originally was its like no shirt no shoes no service in a restaurant. Well, it could be interpreted differently. And its too vague. And to say whos it going to affect. I can see now where people are concerned about it. Well, well know certainly by the end of the week. Senator pierce, i really appreciate your time. Its good talking to you. Let us know what you think. You can follow me on twitter andersoncooper using ac 360. Former president ial candidate john can candidate herman cain weighs in and former Vice President dick cheney. Well get to the truth about the cuts and politics behind the controversy. [ male announcer ] youve never watched her like this before. 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The people behind sb 1062 dont want to talk about it. Our curiosity was piqued by senator melvin, talking points that sounded like they were coming from the same page. Listen. This is not a discrimination bill. This is a religious freedom bill. This bill is advocating for basic freedom. Its a very narrowly tailored bill to protect peoples religious freedoms. There is a kind of talking point quality to those words. It goes far beyond that, though. It extends to the language in similar legislation on the table in states across the country. Heres the meat of 1062 in arizona. Exercise of religion means the practice of or observance of religion, including the ability to act or refusal to act in a manner substantially motivated by a religious belief whether or not the exercise is compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief. Here is hb 376 in ohio. Exercise of religion means the practice or observance of religion. It includes but is not limited to the ability to act or the refusal to act in a manner that is substantially motivated by ones sincerely held religious belief. Sb 1062 and hb 376 and legislation in other states all share the same legal genetic code traceable back to a number of Christian Conservative special Interest Groups in the case of 1062, an outfit called the center for arizona policy, another called the Alliance Defending freedom didnt just push for the bill they also helped write for the bill much thats what representatives from both organizations tell us. Neither organization would come on the program which is kind of hard to understand why. Its not like theyre keeping it a secret. During the testimony surrounding 1062, an adf representative was perfectly open about his organizations push for religious restorations acts nationwide. We have been heavily involved with both federal and state rfra. We provide testimony across the nation to states that are considering rfra or considering amending rfra such as arizona is considering with senate bill so keeping them honest, theres nothing illegal or improper about advocating a position. Everybody does that or providing legal guidance and advice or ghost writing services to lawmakers who might not have the expertise or experience in crafting legislation that will stand up to legal scrutiny. The question is why keep it a secret . Thats the thing we cant quite understand. More now on fallout with my conversation last night with arizona senator al melvin. We got into religious basis behind the bill from former president ial candidate herman cain linked to it on his face book page. Anderson cooper is either completely ignorant about this mans bill and about the teachings of jesus or he is just plain lying. What a disgraceful rant this is. You can go there, judge for yourself. As for the role in religion, there are a lot of different interpretations to the bible, many different perspectives. Tonight were joined by a leading cl