UPDATE: Arizona governor Jan Brewer has vetoed the bill that would have allowed business owners to turn away gay customers. Even though the bill was touted as a religious liberty protection by conservatives, its opponents denounced it on the basis of legalizing anti-gay discrimination. After huddling with both supporters and opponents of the bill on January 26, Brewer said she vetoed it because she believes, “the bill had the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve.”

In a never-seen-before fight, actor and author George Takei wrote a letter to the state of Arizona, pledging to fight against its anti-gay bill, if it is signed into law. Takei wrote an eloquent, passionate yet threatening letter on February 22, saying that he along with gay rights supporters will take definitive action if the law proposed by the state’s legislators goes forward.

Here is a look at what Takei had to say:

Dear Arizona,

Congratulations. You are now the first state actually to pass a bill permitting businesses–even those open to the public–to refuse to provide service to LGBT people based on an individual’s “sincerely 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.

Kansas tried to pass a similar law, but had the good sense to not let it come up for a vote. The quashing came only after the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and other traditional conservative groups came out strongly against the bill.

But not you, Arizona. You’re willing to ostracize and marginalize LGBT people to score political points with the extreme right of the Republican Party. You say this bill protects “religious freedom,” but no one is fooled. When I was younger, people used “God’s 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.

This bill also saddens me deeply. Brad and I have strong ties to Arizona. Brad was born in Phoenix, and we vacation in Show Low. We have close friends and relatives in the state and spend weeks there annually. We even attended the Fourth of July Parade in Show Low in 2012, looking like a pair of Arizona ranchers.

The law is breathtaking in its scope. It gives bigotry against us gays and lesbians a powerful and unprecedented weapon. But your mean-spirited representatives and senators know this. They also know that it is going to be struck down eventually by the courts. But they passed it anyway, just to make their hateful opinion of us crystal clear.

So let me make mine just as clear. If your Governor Jan Brewer signs this repugnant bill into law, make no mistake. We will not come. We will not spend. And we will urge everyone we know–from large corporations to small families on vacation–to boycott. Because you don’t deserve our dollars. Not one red cent.

And maybe you just never learn. In 1989, you voted down recognition of the Martin Luther King holiday, and as a result, conventions and tourists boycotted the state, and the NFL moved the Superbowl to Pasadena. That was a $500 million mistake.

So if our appeals to equality, fairness, and our basic right to live in a civil society without doors being slammed in our face for being who we are don’t move you, I’ll bet a big hit to your pocketbook and state coffers will.

George Takei

Gays and lesbians in Arizona are thrilled with the support they have found in Takei, who is a star in his own right and already has an enormous fan following. Together, they hope that the state of Arizona will not pass the bill that will empower discrimination against gay people.

Photo Credits: Gage Skidmore