ACES, Phoenix and the law

There is a fascinating discussion going on on Facebook about next year's American Copy Editors Society conference in Phoenix -- should ACES go there in light of Arizona's new law trying to corral illegal immigrants?

Marcus Chamberland made the suggestion that ACES look elsewhere. ACES, frankly, can't afford to do that, but I imagine the pressure will be on groups to start pulling out.

Here's the reply by outgoing ACES President Chris Weinandt to the request:

I could give you the politically acceptable answer, but I’ll give you the practical answer. The fact is, ACES isn’t a political organization, and although I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the board members find this decision abhorrent, changing conference locations isn’t in the cards.

Frankly, we can’t afford to go anywhere else at this point. We’ve got a hotel contract that would cost us a bundle to cancel right now. Given how much we’ve lost on the past couple conferences, we just flat can’t afford to do this if we want the organization to survive. We've also got enthusiastic support from ASU. I'm not ready to let those folks down.

And this is just me, but I’d prefer that the organization survive. This is me, too: I think this is a horrendously inhumane law. I've got a list of pejoratives to apply to the Legislature that's as long as anybody's.

But ACES is about spreading the copy editing message throughout the land, and I don’t think the bonehead actions of the Arizona Legislature should deter us from that.