The Republican Party continues its downward spiral into political irrelevancy. This downward spiral is being pushed, nearly at the speed of sound now, by the party’s social conservatism, which no decent person supports. Yesterday saw a trifecta of Republican Party social stupidity. First the governor of Kansas decided to repeal a previous governor’s executive order that prevented the state from discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees:
Kansas will no longer ban discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered in hiring and employment in much of state government because of an action announced Tuesday by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.
Brownback rescinded an executive order issued in August 2007 by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius barring discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The order applied to hiring and employment decisions by agencies under the governor’s direct control and required them to create anti-harassment policies as well.
Over the century the state has set a precedence for prohibiting itself from discriminating against employees. It started with the women’s suffrage movement and continued on through the civil rights movement. Since then the state has ruled that it cannot discriminate against people based on sex, race, religion, or national origin. As time continues on more groups are added to the list. It’s almost certainly a matter of time before LGBT individuals are added to the list. But the governor of Kansas is a fucking asshole that should be hauled out to a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific and stranded. By repealing the executive order he has demonstrated his desire to discriminate against LGBT individuals and that alone proves he’s a horrible human being.
Speaking of discriminating against LGBT individuals, one of the neocon’s rising stars decided he wanted to get in on the action. Ted Cruz, who is often mistakenly referred to as a libertarian by idiots, has introduced a bill to strip federal benefits from married same-sex couples:
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz is pushing the State Marriage Defense Act, legislation that if signed into law could accomplish two objectives. First, redefine marriage at the federal level to remove from hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples the federal government’s recognition of their marriages, and thus, any corresponding federal benefits they are afforded, now or in the future. And second, should the U.S. Supreme Court not find a right to marriage for same-sex couples, encourage states that do not wish to recognize those marriages to potentially nullify them.
Cruz is, not surprisingly, selling this as a states’ rights bill even though it would strip same-sex couples of federal benefits. Once again one must ask why any senator is wasting our time with discriminatory legislation. Only the socially conservative zealots want this and they’re the last group of people anybody should be listening to with any seriousness. The state should not be in the business of discriminating against anybody for any reason. Doing so destroys the fiction its tried to hard to establish that it is representative of the people. Just toss this on the tall pile of reasons not to support Cruz if he decides to run for the presidency.
The third act in this trifecta is rather bizarre. Montana State Representative David Moor introduced a bill that would outlaw, and I’m not kidding here, topless men in public. The representative also had some choice words for yoga pants:
A Republican legislator from Montana has proposed a law that seems like something out of another decade — or perhaps even another century.
State Rep. David Moore has proposed a new bill that would ban “any device, costume, or covering that gives the appearance of, or simulates, the genitals, pubic hair, anus region, or pubic hair region.”
“Yoga pants should be illegal in public anyway,” he added following a debate over the bill. Although the law would not make yoga pants or speedos illegal, it does call for the elimination of all nipple exposure, male or female.
Government so small it fits in your wardrobe! More and more the Republican Party beginning to reflect the rulers of Saudi Arabia. Like the Saudi rulers, members of the Republican Party continue showing an unhealthy obsession with sex. I’m not sure if this is because they’re trying to suppress desires that go against their socially conservative values or they’re just raging assholes that hate everybody that doesn’t fit into the tiny box that makes up their worldview. Either way they’re only pushing Americans way from their party, which is a good thing because they’re also a bunch of war mongering assholes (but their only real competitor is almost composed of war mongering assholes so this is a moot point).