Even the Conservative Lobbyist Hyping a Ban on Gay NFL Players Admits It's a PR Stunt
By Josh Voorhees
A conservative lobbyist of debatable repute grabbed a few D.C.-centric headlines on Monday when he announced that he was preparing legislation that would ban gay athletes from joining the National Football League. The Hill was the first to give Jack Burkman the attention he was looking for, but his homophobic PR stunt also gained varying degrees of traction in the national media and among local outlets (the latter of which were largely less skeptical of Burkman's motives).
The Wire's Philip Bump and the Daily Beast's Ben Jacobs have already done a great job debunking the legitimacy of the proposal, but I'll offer up a three-part PSA nonetheless: 1) A lobbyist can't actually introduce legislation in Congress; 2) even if they could, this one would have no chance at becoming law; and 3) even if it did, its constitutionality would likely face a serious legal challenge in the courts.
Just to give you a taste of the logic Burkman is working with, here's the pull-quote he offered up in his original statement to The Hill:
”We are losing our decency as a nation," Burkman said in a statement. "Imagine your son being forced to shower with a gay man. That’s a horrifying prospect for every mom in the country. What in the world has this nation come to?"
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/02/24/jack_burkman_michael_sam_gop_lobbyist_s_cynical_ploy_to_ban_gays_from_the.html?
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