Kansas bill seeks to define same-sex marriage as ‘parody’


Kansas state representatives introduced legislation Wednesday that would define same-sex marriage as “parody marriage” and would prohibit the state from recognizing same-sex marriages or transgender people.

  • homophobia

The bill seeks to establish an “elevated marriage” for straight couples, according to the Wichita Eagle.

The legislation would also allow controversial gay “conversion therapy” which seeks to change a gay person’s sexual orientation. Critics of conversion therapy say it is often inhumane and does not work.

Two bills were introduced, one that says same-sex marriages “erode community standards of decency.” It argues that civil rights for gay people are different than civil rights for black people because it claims that there are “no ex-blacks but there are thousands of ex-gays.” 

The measures would also prohibit public schools and libraries from hosting or endorsing “drag queen storytime.”

The legislation has very little chance of becoming law, according to the Eagle. The state’s Democratic governor is supportive of gay marriage and is likely to veto the bill if it passes the state legislature.

In an interview with the Eagle, the bill’s sponsor state Rep. Randy Garber (R) admitted that the language in the legislation is “kind of harsh.”

“Their marriage probably doesn’t affect me — their union or whatever you want to call it,” he said. “But in my opinion, they’re trying to force their beliefs on society.”

BY RACHEL FRAZIN – 02/14/19 – TheHill.com

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in In the News / Legal / Legislation  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Republican senators want to protect people with anti-gay beliefs with the First Amendment Defense Act

President Trump has promised to sign the First Amendment Defense Act into law

Twenty-two Republican U.S. senators have reintroduced the First Amendment Defense Act, a bill that would potentially allow people to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals or same-sex couples under the guise of “religious freedom,” reports The Hill.Discrimination

The bill would insulate any individual who holds “a sincerely held religious belief” opposing homosexuality, transgenderism, or same-sex marriage, or any business operated by an individual with such beliefs, from being penalized or punished by the government should they be found to have discriminated against such people.

As a result, it would prohibit the government from levying fines against people who discriminate, denying them government contracts, or taking away special tax breaks, so long as the person claims that their refusal to provide goods or services was motivated by their religious beliefs.

Critics have warned that the bill is so broadly written that it would not just condone discrimination against LGBTQ individuals and same-sex couples, but single mothers, divorcees, those who engage in premarital sex, or anyone else whose lifestyle does not comport with a person’s religious beliefs, no matter how radical or out-of-the-mainstream those beliefs may be.

The bill was sponsored and introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), and co-sponsored by several prominent conservative senators, including Marco Rubio (Fla.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wis.), and Rand Paul (Ky.).

A similar iteration of the bill was introduced in both the House and Senate in 2015, but only received a hearing in the House. The measure failed to gain traction, and was eventually set aside by leadership amid protests from Democrats, and the realization that then-President Obama would veto the measure if it managed to pass Congress.

Lee had previously promised to reintroduce FADA after Donald Trump was elected president. Lee’s House counterpart, U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), now running to be the next governor of Idaho, said last he would introduce similar legislation in the House during the current session, but never did, according to a search of filed bills in Congress.

By John Riley, metro weekly.com, March 8, 2018

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in In the News / Legislation / Politics  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Gay and Lesbian High School Students Report ‘Heartbreaking’ Levels of Violence

The first nationwide study to ask high school students about their sexuality found that gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers are at far greater risk for depression, bullying and many types of violence than their straight peers.

“I found the numbers heartbreaking,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which includes a division that administered the survey.gay hate

The survey documents what smaller studies have suggested for years, but it is significant because it is the first time the federal government’s biannual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the gold-standard of adolescent health data collection, looked at sexual identity. The survey found that about 8 percent of the high school population describe themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, which would be 1.3 million students

These children were three times more likely than straight students to have been raped. They skipped school far more often because they did not feel safe: at least a third had been bullied on school property. And they were twice as likely as heterosexual students to have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property

More than 40 percent of these students reported they had seriously considered suicide, and 29 percent had made attempts in the year before they took the survey. The percentage of those who use various illegal drugs was many times greater than heterosexual peers. While 1.3 percent of straight students said they had used heroin, for example, 6 percent of the gay, lesbian and bisexual students reported having done so.

New York Times, August 11,2016 By Jan Hoffman

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in Recently Added / Science  by Anthony Brown 2 comments