Kansas Republicans Decide Anti-Gay Bill Is “Discrimination,” Kill It

[kpete]

Kansas Republicans Decide Anti-Gay Bill Is “Discrimination,” Kill It

Last week, the Kansas House of Representatives embarrassed itself by easily passing a bill that aimed to make gay people separate and not equal. In the name of protecting the religious sensibilities of private employers, stores, hotels, movie theaters, parks, pools—any public accommodation—the law allowed them to turn away gay couples and could even have applied to gay individuals. It was grotesque. I have been taking seriously the religious objections of nonprofit groups like Little Sisters of the Poor to the contraception mandate in Obamacare (though I think their claims should fall in the end, because the government has an excellent rationale—improving women’s health!—for requiring health insurers to cover birth control). But the Kansas bill was religious objection on crack. As Mark Joseph Stern wrote in Slate:

A catch-all clause allows businesses and bureaucrats to discriminate against gay people so long as this discrimination is somehow “related to, or related to the celebration of, any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement.” (Emphases mine.) In other words, in theory, simply being in a gay relationship with any kind of official status could lose you your job or get you kicked out of a restaurant. And if you sued over this and lost, you’d be stuck with the other side’s attorney’s fees.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/02/17/kansas_anti_gay_bill_republican_senators_admit_it_s_discrimination_kill.html

[truebluegreen]

1. Well. Our children is learning. nt

[eppur_se_muova]

2. That 'toon deserves its own OP ! :D nt