Star Trek' Actor Promises Trouble for Arizona If Gov. Signs What He Calls 'Turn Away the Gay' Bill

Many first became acquainted with George Takei as "Sulu" on the original "Star Trek" TV series, but for a number of years the actor has been an outspoken left-wing, and particularly gay-rights, activist.

Actor George Takei, right, and husband Brad Altman attend "Howard Stern's Birthday Bash" on Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. (Image source: AP/Invision/Evan Agostini)

On Friday Takei switched his phasers on stun and penned a pointed "Raising  Arizona" letter in reaction to the state legislature's passage of a bill many view as anti-gay.

Calling it the "turn away the gay" bill, Takei promised a ground-shaking degree of trouble, including boycotts, if the measure is signed by Gov. Jan Brewer, The Raw Story noted.

“Your taxi drivers can refuse to carry us. Your hotels can refuse to house us. And your restaurants can refuse to serve us," stated Takei's letter, which appears on his blog. "You’re willing to ostracize and marginalize LGBT people to score political points with the extreme right of the Republican Party."

Proponents of the bill see it as a protection for businesses that don't want to serve LGBT people on religious grounds, but Takei writes that "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.”

Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed similar legislation in 2013, but The New York Times reported that it's not clear if she will support the latest bill.

If she does, Takei writes, “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.”

Takei noted that after Arizona nixed celebrating the Martin Luther King, Jr.’s holiday in 1989, the NFL moved a scheduled Super Bowl from Arizona to Pasedena, costing the state $500 million. Super Bowl XLIX is slated for the University of Phoenix in Glendale in 2015.

(H/T: Weasel Zippers)