I am embarrassed, once again, to report that the Republican-dominated Missouri legislature is going down the rabbit hole with another piece of backwards-looking, extremist legislation. This time, it\u2019s a copycat bill that would institutionalize discrimination against gay people under the guise of \u201creligious freedom.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

According to the Kansas City Star:<\/a><\/p>\n

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Wayne Wallingford of Cape Girardeau, states that a governmental authority shall not substantially burden a person\u2019s free exercise of religion<\/a> unless the government demonstrates that it has a compelling interest.<\/p>\n

To supporters of the idea \u2014 similar to legislation filed in several other states \u2014 the goal is to make it clear that private individuals can use religious beliefs as a defense in litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to protect Missourians from attacks on their religious freedom,\u201d Wallingford said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The not-so-invisible hand of ALEC surely is at work here. The ink isn\u2019t even dry on the prototype\u2014Arizona\u2019s \u201creligious freedom\u201d bill–and the adults in the Kansas legislature voted a similar bill down at the end of that state\u2019s 2013 session. Even as businesses and sane people are up in arms over the law in Arizona\u2014even as Arizona\u2019s Republican Governor Jan Brewer weighed the merits of cowtowing to the extreme right wing versus doing the right thing, the humane thing, and\u2014let us not forget\u2014the economically sane thing\u2014and then did the right thing for probably the wrong reasons– repre-hens-ative Wallingford \u00a0is doubling down on his bill in Jefferson City. It\u2019s like he just can\u2019t wait to get his name on this legislation and establish his anti-gay bona fides with the right-wingers in his district.<\/p>\n

Once again, Republican state legislators in Missouri and elsewhere are attempting to turn back the clock on issues that most of us thought were long-since settled [See also: Roe v Wade, the supremacy of federal law over state law, civil-rights, The Civil War!] In a better world, no one would dare to introduce such a bill. The best we can hope for now is that saner heads will prevail and that the bill won\u2019t merit a hearing in the Missouri legislature.<\/p>\n

I can only hope that this latest move\u2014to discriminate unconstitutionally\u00a0against a class of people, using \u201creligious freedom\u201d as an excuse\u2014is a last-gasp effort by people who actually know that the train has left the station without them, and who want to blow up the track as a way of stopping its forward motion. But, then again, the last time I heard the term \u201cdead-enders,\u201d the speaker was Dick Cheney, who was referring to insurgents in Iraq\u2014and who was dead wrong about them. I hope these \u201cdead-enders\u201d don\u2019t have the staying power of their ostensible counterparts in Iraq. If they are, America is in deep trouble, and I am very frightened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am embarrassed, once again, to report that the Republican-dominated Missouri legislature is going down the rabbit hole with another piece of backwards-looking, extremist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1988,255,1651,119,1512,1253],"tags":[2230,887,2229],"yoast_head":"\n