The Danger of Local Government

While everyone has been focusing on upcoming presidential elections, the rabid right has been taking over the states, with predictable results. What we're seeing is a series of designed to chip away at gay civil rights, especially marriage -- a strategy the right has followed with a fair degree of success in hampering women's reproductive rights. Arkansas recently passed a state law that forbids local governments from enacting any ordinance that protects the rights of groups not included under state law. And that forceful leader, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, didn't sign it -- but he didn't veto it, either. (Walmart, based in Arkansas, weighed in against the bill at the eleventh hour -- actually, at about eleven hours and fifty-nine minutes.) And the silence from other quarters has been deafening:

Noted activist Scott Wooledge, who you'll recall played an instrumental role in the identifying of the three gay bashers currently on trial for an attack on a gay couple in Philadelphia, spoke to The Post about the lack of movement from national organizations over SB 202 and about his own involvement: “For some reason, many LGBT organizations have been slow to respond on state level fights,” he explained. “Mostly I stepped up because I felt like there was not going to be a national response.”

Michelangelo Signorile went further, accusing the HRC of malpractice for its silence on SB 202:

Signorile was directing much of his criticism at HRC president Chad Griffin, who hails from Arkansas. “Whatever the reasons, many LGBT national leaders are nowhere on this terrible and potentially enormously impactful law,” Signorile wrote on Friday morning. (Griffin eventually released a statement to the Arkansas Times in a blog post dated Friday afternoon.)

(Every once in a while, I run across some earnest college kids out on the street panhandling for HRC. I routinely turn them down, and explain exactly why. I hate to do it, because they're all so enthusiastic, but every once in a while I can see that what I'm saying is registering.)

Well, now West Virginia has decided to follow suit.

The bill, named the "West Virginia Intrastate Commerce Improvement Act", claims its intent is to "improve intrastate commerce" and business by enacting "uniformity" of laws, thus benefitting "the businesses, organizations and employers seeking to do business in [West Virginia] and will attract new ones to [it]." In actuality, the bill prevents local governments from protecting its LGBT citizenry from discrimination.

That was the smokescreen for the Arkansas bill as well, and you can expect to see more of them. (If I'm not mistaken, similar bills have already been passed in a few other states, but I can't remember which ones, although Texas seems a likely candidate.)

And in Iowa, they're still trying to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, six years after the fact:

Nearly six years after the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously legalized same-sex marriage, 23 Republican lawmakers are still battling to overturn the ruling.

Sen. Dennis Guth, R-Klemme, and Rep. Greg Heartsill, R-Columbia, have introduced resolutions in the Iowa Senate and House seeking a statewide referendum on a state constitutional amendment to limit marriage to one man and one woman. The resolutions are co-sponsored by 21 other GOP legislators.

The comments at the article are not supportive of the effort. And just to demonstrate how completely they've thought this through, the Supreme Court will be ruling on marriage this spring, and most observers are expecting a decision in favor of the right of same-sex couples to marry. These guys are going to look like the idiots they are.

And states and municipalities are going after trans folk, especially students, hammer and tongs:

This past Monday the Kentucky Senate Education Committee revisited and approved Senate Bill 76 in an 8-1 vote in an attempt to force transgender students to use the bathroom at their school that matches their biological sex rather than their gender identification. In a particularly shady move, the committee kept its agenda for Monday in perpetual "Pending" status and no mention of the bill was ever made to the public until it was brought up at the meeting.

I don't know why these people are so obsessed with bathrooms -- although I suspect more than a little projection: they're that sick. And the ground troops are involved -- they're even using bathroom scares to work against local anti-discrimination ordinances.

And of course, there are the "religious freedom" bills that legalize discrimination. One of the latest is from North Carolina, where the legislature is working on a bill to allow clerks and judges to avoid doing their jobs -- i.e., marrying gay couples -- based on their "religious beliefs." The reaction has not been very positive:

Sworn public officials have to do their duty, and this not-so-clever bit of legislating is certain to be found unconstitutional. Magistrates and registers of deeds don't get to cop out of their jobs based on their personal beliefs.

This is amateur hour at the General Assembly, and a petty action that could get expensive. The legislature already has spent nearly $100,000 to have outside lawyers appeal the federal rulings on same-sex marriage. State Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, wisely decided not to press on with appeals once the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the issue.

If the high court rules that laws banning gay marriage are unconstitutional, it follows that a silly maneuver like this one regarding magistrates will fall quickly in the courts as well.

And let's not count out reactions to those states who have passed or are considering banning "ex-gay" torture of minors -- and who should step to the head of the line on that score but that stalwart defender of bigotry, Sally Kern:

With an eye on what has happened in California and New Jersey, today an Oklahoma House committee approved state Rep. Sally Kern's bill to prohibit the state from regulating "ex-gay" torture therapy. Kern, the chair of the committee, claims her bill is the first of its kind in the nation. Her bill is expected to face strong opposition before the full chamber.

Be interesting to see how that bill progresses -- no reputable medical professional is going to support it, but it is, after all, Oklahoma.

I just realized this turned into something of a link dump. And sorry if it's wandering a bit, but there's so much crap going on in the states that we need to be paying attention to, since our major advocacy groups can't be bothered.

It's going to be a war of attrition. I don't think these clowns will have the support in fighting equal rights for gays that they've had fighting abortion rights -- in spite of their attempts to link the two, equal rights doesn't resonate the same way that "killing babies" does. But they'll keep fighting as long as the cash holds out.