Do We Want To Be In Kansas Any More? (Update)

Kansas just became the front-runner in the race for the title "Alabama of the 21st Century." The Kansas state house has passed a "My Rights Trump Your Rights" bill that specifically permits discrimination against gay couples, and by extension, gay individuals, without repercussions -- including in the provision of government services. Cenk Uygur spells it out:

It occurs to me that people who go so far as to propose and support this kind of legislation, first of all, have no right to call themselves "Americans" -- they obviously hate the very ideas that this country is founded on -- but they're also really, truly crazy. As in totally obsessed. As well as being more or less infantile in their reactions and general outlook. I mean, most of us got over the idea that we were the center of the universe by the time we were three or four years old. Apparently, the ones who never made it that far are all in Kansas. (Well, not all -- there are similar bills proposed in Idaho, Tennessee, and a couple of other places where people tend to live under rocks.)

However, it seems there was significant blow-back -- enough to stop the bill in the state Senate:

Susan Wagle, a conservative Republican who is president of the Kansas Senate, raised opposition to the House measure, saying she had “about the practical impact of the bill” and “my members don’t condone discrimination.”

Ms. Wagle was backed by Senator Jeff King, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who said he would not hold hearings on the House bill. Instead, Mr. King said, his committee would hold hearings on the broader topic of religious freedom in Kansas and explore whether the Legislature needed to take any further steps to shore up those protections.

Last year, the Legislature passed the Kansas Preservation of Religious Freedom Act, which protects residents from government burdens that may force them to break their religious beliefs. That bill stemmed in part from concerns that employers could be forced to provide contraception under the federal health care law.

The bill proposed in this year’s session seemed to go further in explicitly allowing any individual to raise a religious objection in refusing to recognize same-sex couples or provide them with services.

“To me, the bill was not as narrowly tailored as it needed to be,” Mr. King said. “We need razor precision in the language of the bill as to what religious liberties we’re trying to protect and how we protect them in a nondiscriminatory fashion.”

Don't let King's last statement fool you -- that's pure face-saving. This bill is about legalized discrimination and nothing else.

Via Towleroad. A lot of objections in the comments seem to rest on non-discrimination laws. Unfortunately, Kansas law does not forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and there is no federal law that's applicable. It seems to me, though, that one could make a case that it violates the Establishment Clause, by enshrining a particular sectarian religious belief into the law.

Either way, it's disgusting.

Update: Seems I'm not the only one who thought about the Establishment Clause.