Denying services to same-sex couples may soon become legal in Kansas.
House Bill 2453 explicitly protects religious individuals, groups and businesses that refuse services to same-sex couples, particularly those looking to tie the knot.
It passed the state’s Republican-dominated House on Wednesdaywith a vote of 72-49, and has gone to the Senate for a vote.
Such a law may seem unnecessary in a state where same-sex marriage is banned, but some Kansas lawmakers think different.
They want to prevent religious individuals and organizations from getting sued, or otherwise punished, for not providing goods or services to gay couples — or for not recognizing their marriages or committed relationship as valid.
This includes employees of the state.
They insist on their right to treat some people as tenth-class citizens. At this rate I expect another Dred Scott decision – “the LGBT person has no rights which the straight person is bound to respect.”
They want to enshrine in the law the schoolyard-bully principle of persecuting anyone you take a dislike to. They want to put hateful othering and tormenting on a legal footing in the great state of Kansas. Yay hatred, let’s have more hatred, everything goes better with hatred.
its chances of passing seem pretty good.
Republicans dominate the state’s Senate and Gov. Sam Brownback is a conservative Christian known for taking a public stand against same-sex marriage.
Brownback has already praised the bill in an interview with a local newspaper.
“Americans have constitutional rights, among them the right to exercise their religious beliefs and the right for every human life to be treated with respect and dignity,” he told The Topeka Capital-Journal.
You stupid, evil, hateful man. How is it treating every life with respect and dignity when you’re making it legal to deny services to people just because you don’t like them? Can you not even put the two ends together and see what you’ve made?
I suppose by “every human life” he meant every fetus. Every consideration for the fetus, none for women or gay people.
HB 2453 is titled “An act concerning religious freedoms with respect to marriage” and covers many bases.
It reads, in part: “No individual or religious entity shall be required by any governmental entity to do any of the following, if it would be contrary to the sincerely held religious beliefs of the individual or religious entity regarding sex or gender:
“Provide any services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges; provide counseling, adoption, foster care and other social services; or provide employment or employment benefits, related to, or related to the celebration of, any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement.”
Anyone who turns away a gay couple not only can’t face a civil suit, but if anyone tries to sue, they could get nailed with the other side’s legal fees.
It’s disgusting. It’s vile. It’s contemptible. IT’S HATEFUL.
This can’t be constitutional.
They don’t really care about the constitutionality of this bill. This is their panicked response to the knowledge that marriage equality is going to get here eventually.
They are playing into our hands. By passing such laws they are inviting court intervention that will work in our favor.
By passing such laws they are inviting court intervention that will work in our favor.
Yep. And they’re signing their names to documents that history will not be gentle to.
I was discussing this the other night with a fellow who, after a few beers, started saying he was “uncomfortable” mutter mutter “stridency” mutter mutter and I reminded him how, for the last 20 years, Strom Thurmond and George Wallace have been known only for the “segregation forever” attitude – any other good (or bad) things that they did have been completely obliterated by those disgusting bits of foolishness. Someday, supporting these hatred bills will not only be career-killers, they’ll be legacy-killers.
Besides, inviting a body of decisive precedents against you is really bad strategy. They should ask the creationists how Kitzmiller V Dover has affected that landscape.
Some rights are more important than others: I would say that your right to be treated with respect and dignity trumps my right to freedom of religion. Because harm and all that.
*sick*
And down the misanthropic spiral I go… better go watch that Dale Hansen video again.
I live in Kansas, the sad thing is that the state house actually knows this is unconstitutional. Within the bill it sets up a fund to use for legal defense of this bill. Not only are these a-holes trying to pass unconstitutional laws, but they are also wasting my tax dollars to defend it! I’ve known the current Kansas state speaker of the house since I was a kid, I used to have a lot of respect for him…..that he could let something like this happen is totally unacceptable.
rationainks: first, my condolences on your state of residence. (I did my time these, but I don’t know that I ever referred to it as ‘living’….). I think with the widespread attempts at passing nearly identical bills in several (8-9 at last count), once the dominos start to fall, it will probably spread quickly and all of these will be ruled unconstitutional.
It’s a rearguard action (no pun intended) by the reactionary fuckwits. I’m surprised to see in OR, though. This a pretty progressive state overall (it might not pass here, though).
@Wylann #8:
My experience with OR is that PDX is progressive, as are Eugene and Ashland. The rest of the state, not so much.