Arkansas’ Almost Kosher Anti-Gay Law

[DonViejo]

Jay Michaelson

New bill that forbids cities from protecting LGBT people is carefully crafted to be almost constitutional. Almost.

Social conservatives are losing the moral battle on LGBT equality—but they’re not giving up without a fight.

More specifically, they’re starting to look like cornered animals, lashing out with everything they’ve got. We’ve already seen Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore pull a Governor Wallace and order probate judges to disobey a federal court order. And last week, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback abruptly stripped LGBT state employees of nondiscrimination protection.

The latest entry in conservative anti-gay desperation? Arkansas, which just banned any city in the Natural State from protecting its LGBT residents from discrimination. (The legislature passed the bill Friday, and Gov. Asa Hutchinson has announced that he will neither veto nor sign the bill, but allow it to become law without his signature.)

That’s right. Not only can you now be fired from your job for being gay, turned away from a hotel because you’re gay, and barred from visiting your sick spouse in the hospital because you’re gay—now, even if the enlightened city of Fayetteville (whose nondiscrimination ordinance sparked the effort) wanted to help you, it can’t.

If Arkansas’ new bill sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Back in 1992, Colorado did something very similar. Outraged that liberal enclaves Aspen and Boulder had passed measures protecting gays from discrimination, the state’s citizens passed Amendment 2, prohibiting any state or municipal agency from protecting gays from discrimination.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/16/arkansas-s-almost-kosher-anti-gay-law.html

[WhiteTara]

1. Glad to know that we can fight this too. nt